Gizmo's Reviews

#Review - The Sea Spinner by Julie Johnson #Fantasy #Romance

2026-05-18T12:00:00.000-04:00

Series: Reign of Remnants # 2
Format: 544 pages, Hardcover

Release Date: April 28, 2026
Publisher: Ace
Source: Publisher
Genre: Fantasy, Romance

Bursting with reawakened magic, a young woman challenges the tides of fate in this highly anticipated installment of Julie Johnson’s romantasy series.

Rhya Fleetwood is tired of being a pawn in other people’s wargames.

The fledgling wind weaver wants—needs—to master her magic before anything else is taken from her. She’s already lost her friends, her newfound home… will she lose Penn, too? There’s no denying the scorching heat between them, but in the aftermath of battle, the Remnant of Fire burns more than anything to rebuild his kingdom and sate his inextinguishable need for revenge.

And he’s not the only one whispering to Rhya across the wind. From the distant island city of Hylios, another voice calls. Another bond pulls.

King Soren, Remnant of Water, is as different from Penn as sparks are from mist. The more insight he offers into the magic that binds them together, the more confused Rhya feels—about her future as a Remnant, about her deepest desires, and about her role in the coming war.

Torn between fire and sea, between the king who could break her heart and the king who understands her potential, Rhya will have to finally step into her power…or risk losing it altogether.

The Sea Spinner is the second installment in author Julie Johnson's Reign of Remnants series. The story is set in a place called Anwyvn and focuses on a young woman named Rhya Fleetwood, who recently learned that she is the Remnant of Wind, one of four reincarnations of elemental magic prophesied to restore balance to war-torn Anwyvn. The story moves from the realm of Fire lead by Pendefyre, to the realm of Water, led by Soren.

The story picks up in the devastating aftermath of the Battle of Fyremas. Caeldera, the Fire Court’s capital, lies in ruins. Rhya Fleetwood, the fledgling wind weaver and Air Remnant, grapples with heavy grief, volatile rage, and the loss of friends and stability. Pendefyre (Penn), the Remnant of Fire and newly crowned king, has shut her out. He channels his energy into rebuilding his kingdom and pursuing revenge, leaving their once-scorching connection strained and distant.

Rhya, tired of being a pawn, desperately needs to master her unpredictable powers. A twist of fate (or perhaps destiny) propels her to the Water Court in the island city of Hylios. There, she encounters King Soren of Llŷr, the enigmatic Remnant of Water. Their interactions force Rhya to confront the limits of her magic, her shifting desires, and her role in the escalating war. Enemies close in, ancient threats stir, and Rhya must decide where her true loyalties—and heart—lie amid fire, sea, and fate.

Rhya's journey from grief-stricken novice to a woman embracing her autonomy and power feels authentic and empowering. She evolves significantly, questioning relationships, her magic, and her place in the world. Penn starts strong but becomes more complex (and frustrating) in his repression and grief. Soren emerges as a standout—charismatic, supportive, cunning, and refreshingly communicative. The middle builds through character-focused moments and training, then accelerates with kidnappings, battles, and revelations.

The final act delivers gut punches and a devastating cliffhanger that sets up book three perfectly. Penn’s emotional unavailability can frustrate, especially early on. The love triangle (or evolution) may not appeal to everyone who shipped Rhya/Penn heavily in book one. The novel blends high-stakes fantasy action, court politics, magical training, and an evolving romantic triangle (or shift) while expanding the world with new locations, lore, and secondary characters.

Chapter
ONE

The metal handle sears my palm, a withering harbinger.

One I ignore.

I step into the throne room and nearly double over. It's hot as a furnace, the heat a shock to the system after the chill of the corridor. At my chest, my Remnant mark burns with contradictory cold, stirring awake in response to the maegic shimmering in the air. It is thick as syrup, a vermilion haze that suffuses the entire space.

The doors close behind me with a resolute click. The sound makes me want to bolt straight back the way I came. I don't want to be here. In truth, I would rather be almost anywhere else, given the fiery reception I am no doubt about to receive, but the memory of Mabon's deep voice rumbles in my head, imploring me to try.

Maybe this time you can get through to him.

If anyone can make the man see sense, it's you.

Please, Rhya. You know I would not put you in this position without good reason. You know I would not ask this of you unless . . .

I take a deep breath, struggling to fill my lungs, tasting the distinct tinge of elemental power on my tongue. Flame and ash, pressing in from all sides. My knees threaten to buckle as I make my way down a short flight of stone steps onto the gleaming floor.

Set deep in the earth, the cavernous chamber was spared the wrath of the ice giants that ravaged Caeldera two months ago. While the rest of the city is an unrecognizable ruin of glass and debris-roofs caved in from massive boulders that rained down, storefront windows shattered with axe hilts, facade columns crumbled into dust-the throne room looks just as I remember it. Dark stone of pure, petrified lava, veined with red. Massive columns with bases of caged fire holding up a distant ceiling. Trenches of flame lining the perimeter floors, extending up the back wall.

But no people.

On the night of Fyremas, spectators packed inside, shoulder to shoulder, angling for the best view of the ward-charging ceremony. Now it is even emptier than the once bustling shops on High Street. My boot falls echo loud as cannon fire as I make my way down the polished aisle that halves the room.

On the lofted dais, the steward's seat Queen Vanora occupied during her reign is vacant. For one who ruled so long, and with such spectacle, her departure from this world was decidedly commonplace. Crushed to pulp in her gilded ballroom like so many others, then reduced to cinders alongside her most common of subjects on the mass pyre erected outside the city walls a week after the battle.

Were she there to witness it, she would have seethed at the indignity of sharing her last rites with the masses. No mournful bugles or waxing eulogies on her behalf. No rare flowers laid or grand portraits commissioned. But these days no one is inclined toward fanfare.

Not even for a dead queen.

My eyes move to the king's heavy metal throne at the center of the dais. It, too, sits empty. Though I hardly expected to find him there. I doubt Dyved's new sovereign has spent more than a handful of minutes sitting down these past weeks-and certainly not in a stuffy ceremonial chair.

I skirt the platform and approach the back wall of the cavern. It is even hotter here, so near to the trenches of fire that leap high and hungry, so near to the source of the maegic that thrums unabated. One section of the wall juts slightly outward, concealing an old mine shaft that functions as a lift. I lay my palm against the warm stone where a peculiar pattern of gouges marks the surface-a glyph, carved there by some ancient ancestor. One short pulse of maegic is enough to activate it. A fiery glow filters between my fingers as the floor panel beneath me begins to rise swiftly upward.

I've grown somewhat more accustomed to using Caeldera's network of lifts over the past few months, but it is still never an entirely pleasant sensation. My innate predisposition toward claustrophobia are triggered anytime I find myself ensconced by earth. Even now, as I rise upward through the mine shaft, I'm itching for escape. The craving for fresh air, for sunlight and open sky, claws at my throat with razor-sharp talons.

The lift comes to a halt with a jolt that shakes my bones. I step out into a semi-enclosed chamber that overlooks the throne room far below and feel every hair on my body rise in response. This is a place of potent natural power, where the deep enchantment of Anwyvn's very core bubbles to the surface. Tears sting at my eyes, an irrepressible reaction to the thick cloud of maegic.

Around me, the curved walls and low-hanging ceiling are carved with countless glyphs. They are aglow, as though lit from within by pure power-the origin of which is crouched at the center of the chamber with his hands pressed flat to the floor of hardened lava, expelling pulse after pulse.

"Pendefyre," I call softly.

He does not look up.

"Pendefyre," I say again, louder. His head jerks, but he still does not look at me. In fact, he seems to redouble his focus, pressing even more firmly against the red-veined stone. Every knuckle of his strong, tanned hands is white from lack of circulation. Flames lick out between his fingers, burn twin paths up his arms, ignite a trail down his bare chest to where a dark design of whorls and spirals mars the flesh.

The Fire Remnant.

It is no less mesmerizing in this moment than it was the first time I saw it, furling outward across his right pectoral in a triangular pattern. But my awe is now laced with alarm as I watch Penn giving more and more of himself to the wards that shield his city from harm. For several long seconds I stand there, paralyzed, my vision consumed by the hungry flames that furl across his skin.

How much more can he give before he burns out completely? How much further can he push himself without causing permanent damage?

No wonder Mabon came for me. No wonder the Ember Guild is so concerned about their leader. The previous Fire Remnant, King Vorath, died here in this very room, doing this very thing. He reached for too much power, pushed himself too hard. And he lost his life because of it.

Angry as I may be at Penn for his attitude of late, I cannot stand idly by while he kills himself in his obsessive quest to make Caeldera safe.

Whether my efforts will be successful is another matter entirely. My teeth grit as recollections of the last time I found myself standing at this threshold-the result of Jac's relentless wheedling to accompany him a fortnight ago-sweep over me. Penn made his position clear that day. Incontrovertibly so, seeing as he bellowed loudly enough to bring what remains of this keep down around our ears about how we should both mind our godsdamned business and keep our noses out of his affairs.

All hail King Pendefyre, the Pigheaded.

Swallowing down the irritation that lingers bitterly on the back of my tongue, I take another faltering step. "Pendefyre. Look at me."

But Penn is unreachable. He is entirely engrossed by his task, pouring every bit of his power into the wards. My heart pangs as I watch him draining himself dry. His expression is savage-a mix of determination and agonized desperation. His face is white as parchment. An overgrown curl of burnished chestnut hair falls over his forehead, concealing his eyes from view, but I know without seeing that they are alive with maegic, the irises burning like hot coals.

The steadying breath I pull into my lungs has the opposite effect. It shimmies through me with intoxicating provocation. Penn's maegic is affecting me more than I want to admit. The Remnant at my chest prickles relentlessly, awake and alert, eager to come out and play. I steadfastly ignore it. Adding air maegic to this scenario will likely have the same effect as dashing a cup of spirits on an open flame while attempting to put it out.

Combustion.

A fresh pulse of power rolls through the chamber. I watch it ripple through his body, the muscles of his bare back flexing, the tendons of his arms going taut as raw maegic transfers from him into the stone. The wards around us throb bright as starlight. My legs buckle as it hits me, stealing the breath from my lungs and sending me to my knees. I land with a bruising thud.

Blinking away the pain, I bring Penn back into view. A sharp blade of panic sluices through me. The fire snaking up his arms and coiling around his chest has grown. It now surrounds his entire form in a thick cloak of flames. He crouches there, within a blazing ball of heat, immolating as I watch. Through the white-hot flickers, I see blood beginning to pour from his pointed ears, dripping down the broad column of his throat, pooling in the rigid indentation of his clavicles.

"Penn!" I cry, a ragged plea. "Pendefyre!"

This time, he does not react at all to the sound of my voice. He is lost in the throes of his power.

I have to put a stop to this. Now. Before it's too late.

Before I lose him.

Gritting my teeth, I force myself forward inch by inch, half crawling across the floor toward him. It is like crawling into the midday sun. Sweat pours down my spine, slicks down my neck. The heat on my face is an unrelenting scorch. Any trace of the tears glossing my eyes evaporates in an instant. They are dry as desert sand, each blink of my lids an unpleasant scrape. My lashes feel like tinder, ripe for catching.

I wonder at what temperature my tunic will ignite as I drag myself across the blistering floor. The petrified lava is so hot beneath my fingertips, I think it might turn molten as it was a millennium ago, the last time this volcano erupted. I push past the pain, forcing myself to continue forward. Closing the gap between us, one excruciating sliver at a time.

It is not only physical pain that thwarts my progress. My very soul seems to sear, fueled by the Remnant bond that links me irrevocably to Penn. Usually I find our connection calming. Comforting. An unconscious tether in the back of my mind, letting me know where he is and, in rarer times of great emotion, what he is feeling. Like the scent of burning leaves on an autumn wind, I can sense him from afar and find my way to him if necessary.

There is nothing calming about our bond in this moment. Nothing remotely comforting. It is a charred current of unadulterated energy that scorches a path from his heart to mine. Within my own reserves of maegic, deep within the wild storm that swirls inside, I feel the placid waters of my power beginning to simmer beneath Penn's heat. All that is cold and controlled at the core of my being seems suddenly in danger of sparking. By the time I reach him at the center of the chamber, I am struggling to keep my own destructive abilities in check.

"Penn, you have to stop this." I lift a hand toward him but jerk it back from the flame as pain bites at me, a stinging lash across my fingers. Blisters bloom on my skin. "Please, Penn. Please listen to me."

The fire is so bright, so hot, it is hard to see and even harder to breathe. I try three more times to reach him through the ball of flame that surrounds his body, telling myself it is only pain, that any burns I receive will heal quickly, but I never manage to touch him before snatching my hand back, my singed flesh smarting in agony.

More blood is pouring from his ears, dripping down his chest in rivulets. Within the ball of fire, his skin is stark white. Corpse white.

Please, a small voice cries out from somewhere deep within me. Please, Pendefyre. Hear me. Stop this.

But he does not.

I cannot use my power to help him any more than I can use my hands. In desperation, I reach within to the bond that burns between us. I grab hold of that invisible tether that connects my heart to his, connects fire to air, and begin to tug on it, a spool of yarn without end, unraveling his psyche into mine.

I am not certain it will work. Not until I see the flames consuming Penn starting to disperse, weakening as I absorb some of the damage he is inflicting upon himself. I nearly bite through my lip as my nerve endings bake, as the marrow in my bones crackles with heat.

Skies, how much pain he is in, if this is but a shade of his power.

I cannot handle much more without doing myself serious harm. But there is no choice. Blood pours from his eyes as well as his ears now, trickling down his cheeks, dripping off his sharp jawline. And so, I take more. I pull his fire toward me, into me, until I think the blood will boil in my veins, until I feel my limbs turn to kindling, until each breath burns like my lungs are full of embers.

I channel every bit of heat and flame into the deepest recesses of my own power, where the air currents within me blow hard enough to extinguish them. Candles in the wind, no match for my storm. The flames around Penn weaken further, growing faint and translucent as they lick across his flesh.

More.

The heat is unbearable. I think my body will crack apart, think my mind will cleave beneath the force of it. The world fades around me, blackness closing in at my peripherals. I am losing the battle against unconsciousness. Just before my final shred of strength falters, my inner voice cries out one last time-a pained and broken prayer to the man crouched beside me.

If you die here, you take me with you.

He hears me. Somehow, someway, he hears me. The flames splutter out with a whooshing sound that echoes off the walls. The relentless wave of heat subsides so fast, I am certain I must be hallucinating. In a blink, I can breathe again. Ragged, desperate gulps of superheated air-but at least I am breathing. I stare down at the veined lava floor of the chamber where my hands and knees are planted. My arms and legs tremble with the effort to keep from collapsing entirely. The sleeves of the plain uniform I wear to treat patients at the infirmary are scorched beyond repair, the skin beneath flushed the angry scarlet shade of a fresh burn. My fingers are a mess of char, the tips blackened. I stare at the damage for a moment before my arms and legs do finally give out and, in an exhausted heap, I fall.

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#Review - Hope Rises by David Baldacci #Thriller #Suspense

2026-05-11T12:00:00.000-04:00

Series: Walter Nash # 2
Format: 432 pages, Hardcover

Release Date: April 14, 2026
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Source: Publisher
Genre: Thriller, Suspense

Walter Nash began a journey down a dark path of seemingly no return, and now he finds himself questioning everything that got him there in this thrilling sequel to Nash Falls from #1 New York Times bestselling author David Baldacci.

Walter Nash, working under the alias of Dillon Hope, is on the road to revenge after becoming an informant for the FBI against a global criminal operation headed up by Victoria Steers. Steers has ripped everything Nash held dear away from him. He has nothing left to lose and with long, rigorous training under his belt the gentle and sensitive Nash has transformed into something he never thought he’d be: a physically imposing man with lethal skills. And now he has only goal left in life: taking down Victoria Steers.

In order to succeed, he’s going to need to cross enemy lines and work the job from the inside. But Steers is shrewd and only brings those she trusts completely into her inner circle. Nash must rely on every ounce of his hard-earned skills in order to prove himself an ally to Steers if he’s ever going to get close enough to decimate her criminal empire.

Yet, despite hating the woman for destroying his life, Nash finds himself oddly drawn to Steers in ways that he never could’ve imagined. And what he ultimately discovers will turn all he believed upside down, forcing Nash to do something truly unfathomable.

So, will the truth set Nash free?

Or end him?

Hope Rises is the second installment in author David Baldacci's Walter Nash series. Hope Rises is a gripping, high-stakes thriller that delivers on the promise of its predecessor, Nash Falls, while evolving into a more introspective and emotionally layered story of revenge, identity, and redemption. Walter Nash, now operating under the alias Dillon Hope, has transformed himself—physically and mentally—into a formidable operative after a devastating betrayal.

Having turned informant for the FBI against a vast global criminal network led by the ruthless Victoria Steers, Nash/Hope is driven by a singular goal: vengeance for the murder of his daughter and the destruction of his family. His wife is in witness protection, and he has little left to lose. The story thrusts him deep undercover, crossing enemy lines to infiltrate Steers’ operation. This involves high-risk missions, including a daring operation in Myanmar to free Steers’ mother from prison.

Along the way, Nash grapples with his new identity as a “muscled and tatted fighting machine,” questioning the path that led him here and confronting the human cost of his quest. Baldacci weaves in billionaire power players, chess-master-level schemers, and surprising alliances, building toward a climax that ties up the duology’s loose ends while delivering plenty of twists. What elevates Hope Rises above a standard revenge thriller is Baldacci’s focus on Nash’s internal struggle.

The gentle family man from the first book has been forged into something lethal, but the novel smartly explores the psychological toll and lingering humanity. Victoria Steers is a formidable, nuanced antagonist, but she's human. She makes mistakes. She also learns valuable lessons from her own mother's actions. Steers and Nash's relationship is an interesting twist, especially once facts are finally revealed. Apparently, this is the finale of the Walter Nash duology, and that makes sense, especially what happens to Walter and his family in the finale.

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#Review - Daughter of the Wind by Nora Carmody #Fantasy #Romance

2026-05-04T12:00:00.000-04:00

Series: Riders of Earth and Sky trilogy #1
Format: 432 pages, Paperback

Release Date: April 14, 2026
Publisher: Ace
Source: Publisher
Genre: Fantasy, Romance

Darkness lurks in the shadows as a betrothed princess wrestles with a dangerous new magic that threatens her bond with her beloved horse—and a forbidden love for the enemy sworn to protect her.

Zara has never felt worthy of her title as First Daughter. Though next in line to lead her people, she hasn’t inherited what matters most—her mother’s sacred earth magic. While her people are tied to the land and their soul-bound horses, Zara has always felt a pull toward the wind.

As war rages against the enemy empire’s deadly Eagle Riders, her people edge closer to defeat. When a rider attacks Zara herself, she unleashes a wind magic strong enough to tear giant eagles from the sky. This power could turn the tide of the war—but at a terrible price: the slow unraveling of her psychic bond with her horse.

So when a marriage treaty is offered in exchange for peace, Zara agrees, sacrificing herself to protect her people. But the emperor’s palace is more treacherous than any battlefield. Hidden behind its gilded walls is a monstrous being long buried—and her power-hungry betrothed is determined to set it free.

Sworn to protect the future empress, Commander Talon soon realizes Zara is more than a political pawn—she’s the key to stopping the emperor’s dark ambitions. As their forbidden desire grows, they must face an ancient evil stirring beneath the throne. Even if it costs them everything.

Daughter of the Wind is the first installment in author Nora Carmody's The Riders of Earth and Sky series. This book is a debut that blends elemental magic, soul-bonded animal companions, political intrigue, and a slow-burning enemies-to-lovers romance. The story focuses on Zara, First Daughter of the Children of Earth, and Commander Talon of the hated Eagle Riders.

Zara, the First Daughter and heir to the Children of the Earth, has never manifested the sacred earth magic expected of her lineage. Her people—nomadic warriors deeply connected to the land and soul-bonded to horses—face existential threat from the Zephyrian Empire's Eagle Riders, who dominate from mountain strongholds with giant eagles as their bonded partners.

When war intensifies, Zara unleashes a rare and dangerous wind magic in a desperate moment, capable of downing eagles but at the cost of unraveling her psychic bond with her beloved horse, Shazeera. To secure peace for her people, she agrees to a political marriage with the enemy emperor. At the opulent yet treacherous Golden Eagle Palace, she navigates court dangers, an ancient evil stirring beneath the throne, and her growing connection to Commander Talon, the eagle rider sworn to protect her—who was once her enemy.

The story explores themes of identity, sacrifice, cultural clash, the cost of power, and bonds (both human-animal and romantic). The soul bonds between riders and their horses/eagles form the emotional core. These telepathic connections feel heartfelt and central to the characters' motivations, especially to Zara and Shazeera's "heart sister" relationship.

The story starts strong with action but slows in the middle as it shifts to court life and world-building. The second half ramps up with palace conspiracies, a monstrous ancient evil (Ozul), family betrayals, and life-or-death choices. The finale delivers intense action, twists, and a compelling hook for Book 2. The slow-burning enemies-to-lovers dynamic between Zara and Talon builds gradually. Zara and Talon are likable and complex (Talon especially grows on readers), but side characters and some emotional beats can feel underdeveloped.

Animal and magical beast lovers alike won't be able to resist the bonded animal companions and elemental magic at the heart of this story, which, combined with the accessible world-building, thrilling battles, and political intrigue, is sure to capture romantasy readers at large. With a heroine in her early twenties who must come to terms with her magic and identity and an angsty, slow-burning romance, new adult readers will likely flock to this angst-filled romantasy. The author and publisher plan another 2 books in this series, so if you want to wait until all 3 books are released, I would not try to change your mind in any way.

1

Zara

There was something about living under the constant threat of violence that desensitized you. Maybe it was because there were only so many times I could wake up in a cold sweat in the night, sure that this night would be the one where the eagle warriors would descend and destroy everything I loved. Eventually, I had to shove all those fears to the very back of my mind for my own sanity.

After years of unending war, I had to trust that my mother's ability to keep our tribe hidden was everlasting. I never thought they would find us.

I should have known better.

As the morning dawned with a red-streaked sky, I traveled the short distance from our camp to a nearby stream. My blood bay mare Shazeera carried me at a leisurely gallop-we never walked when we could race across the plains, the long grasses parting for us like waves. The sky rapidly changed to blue as the sun rose. It was empty, for the moment, of clouds, making it easy to see that no enemy would swoop down on us.

Still, with a war that had raged for over a hundred and fifty years, we could never afford to let our guard down. Even within my mother's protective wards.

Wards that wouldn't last much longer if the queen's health was any indication. As her power waned, mine was meant to replace it. When it came to the powers that should be my birthright, though, I was completely useless.

Not useless. Shazeera interrupted my thoughts with a swish of her tail. It will come in time.

You may be the only one left who believes that, I thought.

She shook her head, her long black mane brushing the tops of my leather-clad knees. Considering I'm always right, isn't that all you need?

I laughed in spite of myself. I just wish there were some evidence of my supposed powers.

You come from a long line of First Daughters with powerful defensive earth magic. We wouldn't have bonded if you weren't meant for greatness.

I smiled inwardly at her proud thought. Shazeera was descended from not only the greatest endurance horses, but also the fastest.

She slowed to a springy trot as the stream came into view, and before I could even let out a yelp in surprise, she continued into the water with a powerful splash, carrying me with her. As the cold water droplets hit my bare arms, goose bumps immediately sprang up. The sun had just risen, and it was still unpleasantly cool outside.

Did you think I needed a bath, or what?

A little cold water might help clear your head, she replied, before shaking off and lowering her head to drink.

It's you who isn't seeing the situation clearly, I grumbled mentally as I jumped from her back onto the bank. I wanted to avoid getting my boots even wetter than they already were.

I crouched down and cupped water in my hands to drink, closing my eyes as the refreshing coolness slid down my throat. It always tasted better fresh from the source. Rising, I scanned the distant hills to the east, where a line of trees met the plains. Beyond that rose the mountains. I couldn't see them from here, but I imagined them soaring high above the foothills, just as they did on the map my mother-Ama to me, but Queen Rana, the Queen of All Queens, to everyone else-often brought out whenever General Isa came to talk strategy. In my mind, I could see the many clusters of triangles that represented the Angora Mountains to the east, where the Zephyrian Empire's capital city of Naharu and its palace clung to the highest peak of Crane Mountain.

As the sun rose higher, warming my dark hair, I tried to imagine what it would be like to live in the forest, constantly shaded. Out on the plains, the trees were few and far between. Generations ago my people's territory had expanded as far as the Black Forest to the north and the Ridgeline Foothills to the east. Now, the enemy's territory surrounded us on three sides. Shazeera and I had explored as far as the foothills, but that had been far more dangerous than I had anticipated.

Far, far away, a giant eagle screeched, and we both froze, as we'd been trained to do from a young age. A strange tension coiled in my chest, and I couldn't say it was entirely due to fear.

I reached out with my mind to feel for my mother's protective wards as she had taught me, but as usual, I could sense nothing at all. Even the weakest earth magic user could sense the protective shields that hid our people from our enemy. The fact that I couldn't was endlessly frustrating-especially to my mother. As First Daughter, how would I ever take over forming the wards if I couldn't even sense them?

The wards are still strong, Shazeera said gently. She knew how worthless I felt when I had to rely on her senses instead. The horses were born being able to sense earth magic-no training required. At least one of us could.

Her ears pricked toward the east as she listened for a moment, detecting another screech that I could barely make out. The eagle is flying away from us.

We both relaxed. It must have been a wild eagle, then. They were still dangerous, but not nearly as much as one carrying a Zephyrian rider. Our camp was currently only an hour away from the mountain foothills, where many wild eagles nested.

Just once, I would like to take a drink from this stream without worrying that a giant eagle was about to swoop down on my head, Shazeera said with an irritated swish of her tail.

Maybe none of them would be as hostile if it weren't for the Zephyrians.

The Zephyrians flew to our continent of Equnox on the backs of giant eagles a hundred and fifty years ago, from their much smaller continent of Darkhan-one of the four continents in our world. When they found our lands to be populated by mostly by peaceful tribes, they returned with battalions of highly trained infantry by ship. The Angorans of the eastern mountains were the first to fall under their rule, followed by the Nazcas of the northern forests, and then the Semalians of the western coastline. Only three tribes remain free.

Once, we had been known by our individual tribes, though we were all descended from the first six daughters who had been given magic by the Earth Mother. Out of necessity, we had banded together as the Children of Earth against our common enemy. And our numbers were dwindling.

Shazeera turned her head toward our camp, growing still as though concentrating.

What is it? I asked.

Nafalla has asked us to return.

I groaned. Nafalla was my mother's bonded mare. Ama wants to start training this early?

Considering I couldn't even detect the wards just now, I was sure it would go as well as it ever did.

Most considered it a useful ability that the horses could all communicate with each other mentally within a short distance, especially during battle. For me, though, it was just a way for Ama to track me down quickly.

I would say we could make a run for it, Shazeera said, stepping out of the stream, but Nafalla specifically said if we tried to skip training again, she would put me on foal duty for a month.

I thought you liked the babies, I said as I lightly grabbed hold of her withers and vaulted onto her back.

Only from afar, Shazeera replied. Up close, the little beasts bite and kick.

I smiled for a moment at that image. She wasn't wrong. The foals were like long-legged toddlers with boundless energy.

But Shazeera's amusing commentary could only briefly distract me before the dread pulled me down again. Nothing made me so aware of my inability as these training sessions with Ama. Especially since every one of them had ended in embarrassing failure.

Shazeera set the pace at a fast canter, and I tried to convince myself that maybe this time I would finally tap into the power that should be my birthright.

Before it was too late.

Shazeera slowed as we entered the camp, and many called out in greeting or simply stopped and bowed their heads as we passed. Our camp wasn't the largest of all the tribes, because of the frequency with which we had to pick up and move; the Queen of All Queens moved camp frequently to change the radius of the wards' protection. But of the ten tents here, all were large, with at least two rooms in each. The largest of all, though, was the pavilion, which had three distinct points to its top and golden thread woven amongst the bright colors. It was the queen's tent, and my home.

I stood before it now, breathing in the familiar scent of sage, which wafted from beyond the doorway of the pavilion.

Well met, daughter of my heart, Nafalla's greeting passed to me through Shazeera. She dipped her head to allow me to touch her velvety nose, the soft lamplight disappearing into the deep shadows of her onyx coat.

The pavilion soared above the tips of the horses' ears, supported by light wooden rods that were flexible and strong. It created a space large enough for everyone in the camp to fit inside the main room, which served as the throne room. There were bedrooms on either side, separated by vibrant blue silk drapery. The room to the left was mine, but I knew Ama would be waiting in the throne room.

Naomi, one of Ama's guards, quietly greeted Shazeera and me with a bow as we entered.

We found Ama sitting before a bowl of polished bone, filled with burning sage. Her dark eyes, heavily lined with kohl, lit up when she met my gaze. With a smile, she gestured for me to sit. Nafalla took her place beside Ama, while Shazeera stood by my side. I tucked my legs beneath me and joined Ama on the floor of the tent, where a plush rug of many colors had been spread.

"You were up early," Ama said to me as she handed me a cup of white flower tea. The bangles on her wrists jingled pleasantly, the sound as familiar to me as my own heartbeat.

"I couldn't sleep," I admitted, taking a sip of the honey-sweetened tea.

Ama tilted her head sympathetically at me, her thick hair slipping off her shoulder. My own thick hair was tied back in a long braid. Everyone said we looked so much alike. That the blood passed down from First Daughter to First Daughter for generations was strong. We had the same golden-brown skin, deepened by the hot plains sun; high cheekbones; full lips. The same large eyes framed by dark lashes, though my eye color was a much lighter amber, where hers was a rich chocolate.

I may have looked like her on the outside, but I had none of the power given to her by the Earth Mother. At her full strength, she had been able to heal someone on the brink of death, from the inside out. She could even use her abilities offensively, by causing a wave of agony over a small battalion of soldiers, enough to cripple them.

But I couldn't even heal a scratch.

"I will admit that your power is taking longer to manifest than is common in our family," Ama said, reaching over to touch my hand, "but earth magic has always been strong in the Sorayan line. It will come. We just need to tap into it."

I glanced down at my cup with a frown. Ama believed that anything was possible if you just tried hard enough. And maybe she was right. Maybe I didn't put enough effort into it.

Nonsense, Shazeera said sharply. You tried so hard to connect to your abilities last time that your nose bled with the effort.

Yes, but I didn't pass out, so clearly I wasn't trying hard enough, I thought back with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

Shazeera snorted beside me.

"Let's begin," Ama said, and with an inward sigh, I angled my body to face her. The horsehair mantle she wore brushed against my arms as she placed her hands on mine. It was as black as Nafalla's mane and tail, as it had been taken from them over the years, and dark as Ama's own hair where it wasn't streaked with silver. My own mantle, formed from the black hairs of Shazeera's mane and tail, was much smaller, as I hadn't had as many years to add to it. "Instead of trying again to sense the protective wards, let's try to access the healing side of your magic."

I shot her a confused glance. "Aren't the wards the most important?"

"Yes, but sometimes trying a different approach can help refresh your senses."

I nodded and tried not to argue, even though we had tried this months ago and it hadn't helped. Nothing did.

"The pulse points are where you can connect with the rivers and streams of blood within someone, following it to its source. The blood will always reveal what needs to be mended, whether it is sickness or injury. Now find my pulse with your fingertips."

I did as she asked. This part was easy. Anyone could feel a heartbeat in a pulse. Her wrists were warm, her heartbeat steady, as I pressed down gently with both hands.

"Close your eyes and go into the part of you that's connected to Shazeera."

In my mind, I reached for our bond, that gleaming chain of light that was unbreakable. I could sense Shazeera's emotions-hopeful and anxious that I would finally succeed. If I went deeper, I could even sense what she physically felt. Right now, the scent of the sage filled her nostrils, the smell so much more complex than I detected. Beneath the typically herbal scent were notes of rich loam and spicy peppercorn.

"Are you there?"

"Yes," I murmured, keeping my eyes closed tightly in concentration.

"I want you to reach into yourself where that same power comes from and reach for my pulse point instead."

But when I reached for my mother's life force, the one I should have been able to sense if I had healing abilities like her, there was only darkness.

"There's nothing there," I told her, barely able to keep the frustration from my voice.

"All you can do is try again," she said gently. "Our life force shines as brightly as the sun. With your inner eye, you should be able to detect the light radiating from my bloodstream. You must reach out with the part of you that's connected to the Earth Mother."

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#Review - Revenge Prey by John Sandford #Suspense #Crime #Thriller

2026-04-29T12:00:00.000-04:00

Series: Lucas Davenport # 36
Format: 400 pages, Hardcover

Release Date: April 7, 2026
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
Source: Publisher
Genre: Thrillers, Suspense

Lucas Davenport must track down a ruthless Russian hit team, in this latest thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author John Sandford.

Leonard Summers—not his real name—is on the run. A former high-ranking Russian intelligence officer who defected to the U.S. after providing critical information about Russian spies in U.S. government service, Leonard, his wife Martha, and son Bernard have spent the past year holed up in a CIA facility near Washington. After the CIA makes a deal with the U.S. Marshal Service’s Witness Protection Program (WPP), Leonard’s family is transported to Minneapolis. The plan is to hide them in a wooded Minneapolis suburb that resembles their former home and dacha near Moscow.

The Summers are received at their destination by Lucas Davenport and fellow marshal Shelly White. Unbeknownst to them, the WPP group has been tracked by a Russian hit team. And while nobody in the WPP has ever been attacked…Leonard might be the first victim. As shots are fired and enemies dodged, Lucas must move quickly to uncover where the leak is coming from, before the hit team can strike again.

Revenge Prey is the 36th installment in author John Sandford's Lucas Davenport series. Lucas Davenport is a true maverick; whether he's working for the law or skirting procedure, he utilizes his exceptional ability to get inside the mind of a killer, along with his select contacts in the government, the media, and the criminal underworld to get the job done. He's worn many hats during his career in Minnesota—police officer, detective, BCA investigator, state troubleshooter—but his newest job takes him into the biggest arena of all.

Leonard Summers (real name: Leonid Sokolov), a high-ranking former Russian intelligence officer, has defected to the U.S. after exposing Russian spies embedded in American government circles. He, his wife, Martha, and their son, Bernard, enter the Witness Protection Program and are relocated to a wooded Minneapolis suburb designed to resemble their old dacha near Moscow. U.S. Marshal Lucas Davenport and partner Shelly White are on hand for the handoff, alongside CIA involvement.

Almost immediately, a Russian hit team—acting on orders from the highest levels—strikes. What follows is a relentless cat-and-mouse game as Lucas teams up with a sharp, sarcastic CIA agent named John Sherwood to hunt the assassins, plug a suspected leak in the protection apparatus, and keep the family alive. The story balances Lucas’s perspective with glimpses into the hit team’s operations, adding depth to the antagonists.

The novel starts with a bang (literally) and maintains high tension through multiple assassination attempts and chases. Brief appearances by Weather, Letty, and Virgil Flowers provide welcome continuity without overshadowing the main plot. John Sherwood stands out as a memorable new ally—snarky, competent, and a good banter partner for Lucas. The Russian hit team members are surprisingly well drawn: professional, under pressure, and humanized by their own motivations and moral gray areas (they’re targeting a man with a dark past). This avoids cartoonish villains. If you like gritty cop thrillers with spy-novel elements, moral complexity, and top-tier banter, Revenge Prey delivers. Just don’t expect revolutionary changes to the formula—Sandford knows what his audience loves and serves it up reliably.

1

She had long blond hair and was almost pretty, in the manner of tennis jocks and female gymnasts; too much muscle in the face and arms and butt for the smooth baby-fat look of fashion models or movie stars.

Because she wasn't one.

Despite the cold, she was lying on her parka, instead of wearing it, the better to anchor the rifle against her shoulder. She put the crosshairs on the target, took up the trigger slack, and squeezed. The recoil was sharp, but manageable.

The man lying in the dirt next to her, looking through a spotting scope, said, "Two centimeters high, a centimeter right. Once more."

She took her time and squeezed again. The spotter said, "Same hole."

She said, "I'm so fucking cold, I feel like a goddamned фруктовый лёд." In English, literally, a "fruit ice," or not so literally, a "Popsicle."

"Forget the cold," the man said. He had a hard, narrow face and black hair over black eyes. "Three rounds, fast."

The three rounds went out in less than three seconds, and he said, "All over the place, left right and high, all within six centimeters of the ten-ring."

"So it's good."

"Better than good. I've seen what it does to gelatin. If you hit the target anywhere above the waist, he's dead," the man said, rolling on his side to look at her. "These copper bullets won't defeat Level 4, but armor-piercing will. Shoots so flat . . . I want to take one home with me."

"If I could shoot as well as you do, I would find a way to do that," the woman said, handing him the rifle. "Maybe a custom barrel with handloads. The perfect weapon."

They were lying in a ditch ten miles west of the small town of Owatonna, Minnesota, an informal shooting range, located by their concierge, who was waiting nervously by the car.

"I wish it was suppressed," the woman added.

"You know the English proverb, 'If wishes were horses, beggars would ride'?"

Some wrinkles appeared in her forehead: "I'm not sure what that means . . ."

The proverb didn't quite translate, because they were speaking in Russian.

Because they were Russian.

A snaky blacktopped driveway led up a gentle slope to the hideout. Two other houses were fed from the same cul-de-sac, all three out of sight of one another, a carefully contrived privacy set in a suburban forest. Natural shingle siding, a gray-stone chimney, and high peaked roof gave the hideout the vibe of a Minnesota lake chalet, although the nearest big water was a mile away.

The marshals arrived in separate vehicles, Lucas Davenport pushing his Porsche Cayenne up the driveway, while Shelly White left her 4Runner in the street and walked up to meet Lucas.

"The guy gets this place for free? They just gave it to him?" White asked, peering squint-eyed at the house of her dreams, which were unlikely to be realized.

The afternoon light was draining away, a sullen, tangible gathering of gloom, as happens in Minnesota on overcast February days. "The way of the world, sweetheart. You get big enough, you get bad enough, they hand you the fat stacks."

The hideout was one of twelve houses nestled on four back-to-back cul-de-sacs. Seen from a satellite, the cul-de-sacs resembled a four-leaf clover, set down in a winter landscape of barren broad-leafed trees and evergreens that appeared black in the murky afternoon light.

Shelly White looked like a semi-starved Depression-era farm wife, maybe caught on black-and-white film rattling out of Oklahoma, six snot-nosed kids in a broke-down Model T Ford. She had the knife-edge cheekbones, the pale gray eyes fixed in a thousand-yard stare, the parched lips held in a tight straight line.

White had never been in Oklahoma, wasn't starving, and she drove a Toyota SUV much too fast for the crappy suspension. She was a deputy U.S. Marshal who'd grown up in East Grand Forks, Minnesota, looking across the Red River at North Dakota. Four years as an Air Force cop and a degree in criminology got her a job with the U.S. Marshals Service.

She and Lucas, another deputy marshal, hadn't particularly liked each other when they first met, but they got along, and after a couple of years, had warmed up. Lucas had three natural children with two different women, plus an adoptive daughter; White had three children with two different men, so they had blended families to talk about. Along with guns, fugitives, and mandatory overtime.

White was on the short side, thin and tough as a razor strop. A Glock 9mm hung on her right hip. Below that hip, out of sight beneath her winter cover-ups, she had a massive scar on her thigh where she'd been shot with a fast-expanding jacketed hollow-point bullet from a deer rifle.

Just . . . life in the Marshals Service.

As they stood side-by-side, Lucas loomed over her, a substantial opposite, with expensively cut dark hair threaded with gray and crystalline blue eyes. He was tall, wide across the shoulders. A hairline scar tracked across his left eye from his forehead to his cheek, a relic of a fishing trip. Another puckered scar sat on his throat, where a teenaged girl had shot him with a piece-of-crap .22 that he hadn't seen coming. He had a nonstandard Walther 40 S&W on his left hip, in a cross-draw holster, for easier access under a suit coat.

Lucas had a tendency toward depression, exacerbated by the gloom of winter, and by the sporadic violence of the job. White shared the depressive gene, and they sometimes compared notes. When Lucas was younger, he hadn't worried about it. Now, in his later fifties, he had a tendency to think he'd been shot too often and to brood about the near-death experiences. About what he'd miss, if he were dead; about not seeing his younger children grow into adults.

White had thoughts that ran down in the same trench.

Still, they both were hunters, trackers. They liked the intensity of the work, if not always the consequences, because the intensity went some way toward offsetting the blues.

“I don’t know why they put us out here,” White said, looking around like a curious cat, her nose twitching in the wind. Although she was wearing a down parka, ski gloves, and a cashmere watch cap over her streaky brown hair, she shivered. They were standing at the top of the driveway, in a grove of paper birches, the kind the Ojibwe once turned into canoes.

The ground, hard as pig iron, was covered with half an inch of crunchy snow. There'd been almost no snow over the winter months, but they'd gotten all the usual cold weather. The temperature, according to Lucas's weather app, was six degrees and falling, and a persistent breeze whipped the steam away from their mouths. "I'm not a babysitter," she added.

"This guy is no baby," Lucas said. He coughed once, covering his mouth with a gloved fist. He wasn't sick; the bitter cold set him off. He could feel his lips cracking, and he'd left his ChapStick sitting on his dresser. "He was in some kind of enforcement branch of the Russian spy agency. He's probably killed more people than the Marshals Service."

"Yeah, but why us in particular?" White asked. "Why not Remy, or that asshole Clark? They'd jump at it, hanging out with headquarters guys."

"Because I'm the smartest guy in the office, and you're a close second? They thought the job might take some brains."

"You're almost smart enough to get that almost right," White said, shivering again. She'd been a National Merit Scholar in high school and Lucas hadn't been; but then, he'd been a hockey jock, and what could you expect from somebody who'd been hit in the head with a puck, and more than once? "But really?"

"Because Witness Protection doesn't babysit, either," Lucas said. "They plug a guy into a hideout and that's it. This guy . . . The Russians would like to get at him. They need somebody with guns close by, or think they do. That's not usually Witness Protection."

“All right,” White said. She’d done time with fugitive task forces and considered her Glock to be a species of musical instrument. Lucas had a reputation as a shooter, which he didn’t entirely appreciate, because it suggested he was too fast on the trigger. He felt he was barely fast enough, and he had the scars to prove it.

At the moment, White was in the Minnesota winter stance, shoulders squeezed tight, elbows to rib cage, fingers pulled out of the fingers of her gloves, hands clenched in fists. "Why aren't you cold? You're standing there in your plutonium suit and tie . . . and that coat. What's that coat made of? Pubic hair from virgins? What?"

"Wool, from goats, but highly refined, college-educated, Italian goats," Lucas said. He was a hopeless fashion plate. He leaned toward White: "Don't tell anyone, but I'm also wearing long underwear. Smartwool. Of course, if I have to pee, I'm in trouble."

"Well, that's it: you are smarter than me. I'm wearing cotton bikini briefs." White looked at her watch: "They're late. Jerks left us standing out here freezing our balls off."

"Not mine. They're like two chestnuts roasting on an open fire."

White: "Hey: you don't have to top me every time, okay?"

Lucas’s cell phone buzzed. He dug it out of the pocket of his coat, looked at the screen: “Now they’re going to tell us why they’re late.”

He answered, listened for a moment, and when the person on the other side stopped talking, he said, "Okay. We'll take a look around here," and rang off.

White: "What?"

Lucas said, "They're still half an hour out. They had to find a suitcase. Knowing the Marshals Service, they probably flew last-class on Trans-New Jersey Airways."

"If we had a key . . ." White looked wistfully up at the locked and alarmed house, furnace steam puffing from a rooftop chimney. The place had what were once called "grounds." Nothing rural about it, a four-acre fenced lot heavy with white-trunked birches and brooding blue conifers and maples, a few red leaves still attached to the maples. A line of bare-naked bridal wreath bushes were strung along the driveway, while leafless lilacs waited in the dooryard for spring.

"We could sit in the truck, but I'd like to take a look around," Lucas said. "You know, in case we ever had to come back out here."

"Not a bad idea. We can at least see through the woods right now," White said. "Gotta be pretty dense in the summer."

"Let me change my shoes . . ."

Lucas popped the back of his truck and took out a pair of Sorel Caribous, pulled them on, tucked in the bottom of his suit pants, and carefully placed his John Lobbs on the truck's floor.

Together, they marched around the lot, past a frozen picnic table that sat next to a frozen firepit made with frozen stones with frozen logs next to it, through the maples and pines and birches and around the withered shrubs. They found a hard-frozen coiled hose that somebody had forgotten under a dwarf mugo pine, two wickets from a croquet set that somebody had forgotten to pull, and, at the back of the yard, a shovel with a rusted blade and a broken handle. Having crisscrossed the yard, they went out a gate at the back.

They discovered that the hideout was on one of four circles, which they hadn't known, with a narrow, frozen creek winding through the common area between the circles. They stumbled across whitetail deer beds tucked under balsams and racoon and coyote tracks along the iced-over creek.

There were three houses on each of the four circles. All of the houses were showing furnace exhaust, and two had older cars in the driveways, which White thought must belong to housekeepers. Nobody with common sense would park outside in this cold, if they had a heated garage.

"If the guy's a bowhunter, he could put up some venison," White said, checking out a line of deer tracks. She scuffed at one of the bigger prints and said, "Nice buck."

They were puffing out clouds of steam, and tiny icicles were forming on the tips of White's hair.

"Given his reputation, I'm pretty sure he ain't a vegetarian," Lucas said.

They’d just gotten back to the house when two SUVs pulled into the driveway, both Ford Explorers, both with the tired look of rental cars. A bulky marshal, head like a half-gallon milk jug, climbed out of the first vehicle, saw them: “Davenport and White?”

"Davenport and White," Lucas answered. "Are you Derrick?"

"Yeah. You look like your pictures. You guys check out the site?"

"We did," White said. "There are four cul-de-sacs back-to-back, three houses on each circle, a common area in between them. Looks like all the lots are about the same size, three or four acres each, all fenced. Nothing but animal tracks in the snow."

"Excellent." Derrick Beard turned back toward the SUVs and waved. Seven more doors popped open, and seven more people got out. Three were marshals, all in tactical winter wear, all from Washington, as was Beard.

Another of the arrivals, an American, but not a marshal, was thinner, taller, quicker, wearing a wool knee-length camel coat with matching wool-and-leather gloves. He sported black rectangular sunglasses and a brown Borsalino hat. The clothes were well cut and subtly aristocratic. Looking at them, Lucas, the fashion plate, was stroked by the feather of jealousy. He liked browns, admired them, but given his coloring, couldn't wear them.

The final three to get out of the trucks were a short sixty-year-old gray-haired man with broad shoulders, a stub nose, and ruddy face, in a blue L.L.Bean parka. He was followed by a scowling fortysomething woman with tight-cut blond hair, small gold earrings, and narrow shoulders; she was several inches taller than the man Lucas presumed was her husband. She was also wearing a blue Bean parka.

The third was a tall youngish man, midtwenties, whose face resembled the woman's. His dishwater-blond hair fell to his shoulders and his face was covered with dishwater blond fuzz, like a holy card Jesus. Despite the cold, the son was wearing tight fashion jeans and a hip-length black leather jacket worn open.

"Hope to God somebody has a key," Lucas said.

"We're good," Beard said. "Let's get inside. I'm already numb."

The older man said to the woman, "Look at the birches, Martha, like home. I told you." His face looked carved, rather than grown, with snarl lines starting beside his nose and extending to the corners of his mouth. The quarried look of his face was matched by that of his wife.

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#Review - Don't Say a Word by Allison Brennan #Thriller #Suspense

2026-04-27T12:00:00.000-04:00

Series: Angelheart Investigations # 2
Format: 401 pages, Hardcover

Release Date: September 16, 2025
Publisher: MIRA
Source: Library
Genre: Thriller, Suspense

In the second Angelhart Investigations thriller from New York Times bestselling author Allison Brennan, when a teenager is killed and his mother doesn't believe it was an accidental overdose, the Angelharts have to solve the case before someone else ends up hurt.

The police ruled Elijah Martinez’s death an accidental drug overdose, but the teen’s grieving mother isn’t convinced. With the case officially closed, Angelhart Investigations is the only one who can help her find the truth. Margo Angelhart’s sure this will be an easy solve—she’ll talk to Elijah’s friends and employer, retrace his steps, and figure out what happened in his final hours.

Except none of his friends believe he did drugs, and the teacher who’s been vocal about the police mishandling the case turns up dead. Every thread Margo pulls leads back to a dangerous drug ring that once ran through the school.

When Margo’s brother Jack, a former cop, can’t get straight answers out of the police, they don’t know if it’s because of an active case…or a cover-up. Margo’s only sure of one thing—she has to find out what really happened to Elijah before more teens become pawns in a twisted scheme.

Don't Say a Word is the second installment in author Allison Brennan's Angelheart Investigations series. The story opens with the death of Elijah Martinez, a promising high school honor student found dead from what police quickly rule an accidental fentanyl overdose. His grieving mother refuses to accept the official conclusion—Elijah had no history of drug use, excelled academically, and had a bright future ahead. With the case closed, she turns to Angelhart Investigations in Phoenix, Arizona, for answers.

Margo Angelhart, now fully committed to the family PI firm after a 3-year absence due to her own father's curious choice, takes the lead. She expects a straightforward investigation: interview friends, talk to his employer, retrace his final hours. But Elijah’s friends and acquaintances insist he never touched drugs. As Margo digs deeper, she uncovers links to a prior drug ring that operated through the school. A vocal teacher who questioned the police handling of the case turns up dead, raising the stakes dramatically.

Margo’s brother Jack (a former cop) hits a wall when seeking information from his old department, sparking questions about whether it’s an active investigation or a cover-up. The Angelhart family—including sister Tess (a research whiz), their mother (a former prosecutor), and extended law-enforcement connections—pools their skills. The case touches on timely issues like the opioid/fentanyl crisis, teen vulnerability, institutional failures, and buried community secrets.

Personal stakes rise as the investigation endangers witnesses and forces Margo to confront family dynamics and her own past. Margo is a tenacious, relatable protagonist—sharp, driven, but still working through family rifts (especially with her mother) and the shadow of her father’s imprisonment for a murder many doubt he committed. Supporting characters, including Elijah’s best friend Angie and potential romantic interests, add layers. The Angelharts feel like a real, messy family with history, banter, and loyalty.

Brennan excels at blending detailed investigative work with emotional depth. The procedural aspects feel authentic—interviews, dead ends, evidence gathering, inter-agency tensions—without getting bogged down. Family collaboration shines: each member’s expertise contributes meaningfully, making the team dynamic a highlight. If you enjoy smart, family-oriented crime procedurals with emotional undercurrents (think authors like Kendra Elliot, Melinda Leigh, or Brennan’s own backlist), this is a must-read. It works well as a standalone but rewards readers familiar with the Angelharts. The overarching family mystery (around the father) adds intrigue for future books.

Angelhart Investigations

Novella 0.5: Into the Fire
Book 1: You'll Never Find Me
Novella 1.5: Out of the Shadows
Book 2: Don't Say a Word

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#Review - The King's Ransom by Janet Evanovich #Mystery #Suspense

2026-04-24T12:00:00.000-04:00

Series: Recover Agent # 2
Format: 346 pages, Hardcover

Release Date: November 11, 2025
Publisher: Atria Books
Source: Library Book
Genre: Mystery, Suspense

Gabriela Rose, recovery agent extraordinaire, can find just about anything. Too bad she can’t seem to lose her gorgeous-but-infuriating ex-husband Rafer Jones. And now he needs her help. His cousin, Harley, is in trouble…big trouble.

As the president of a too-big-to-fail bank, he invested an astronomical amount of money in insuring some of the world’s most priceless artifacts at the urging of his board. It seemed like a low-risk, high-reward business move, so he jumped in with both feet. But recently, these insured pieces started going missing and worse, there’s no paper trail of Harley being directed to make these risky investments. Unless the artwork can be recovered soon, it looks like Harley is going to be heading to jail as the fall guy for an ingenious crime.

Gabriela knows what she must do: travel around the world with Rafer to find the missing works of art, keep Harley out of jail, and save both his skin and his bank. Along the way, she’ll encounter corruption, threats, murder, mysterious dark forces behind a global conspiracy to destroy the world’s wealth, and a nefarious villain who will stop at nothing to bring the world to the brink of ruin.

The King's Ransom is the second installment in author Janet Evanovich's Recovery Agent series. Gabriela Rose, a highly skilled recovery agent who excels at tracking down lost or stolen treasures, is pulled into a personal and professional crisis when her exasperating but gorgeous ex-husband, Rafer Jones, shows up with his cousin Harley Patch.

Harley, president of a major bank, has been set up as the fall guy in a massive insurance fraud involving billions in priceless artifacts (think items like the Rosetta Stone and a golden coffin). These treasures have mysteriously vanished, leaving Harley facing jail time unless Gabriela can recover them. What starts as a rescue mission spirals into a worldwide hunt across London, Cairo, Italy, Florida, and more.

Along the way, Gabriela and Rafer tangle with corruption, murder, shadowy henchmen, and a nefarious conspiracy involving elite villains (referred to as “The Kings”) who aim to create broader chaos. Expect locked-room theft puzzles, daring escapes, cultural detours, and plenty of tension between the exes. The book moves at a breakneck speed, with short, to-the-point chapters. Gabriela is a standout protagonist—resourceful, confident, martial-arts-trained, stylish, and driven.

Unlike the more chaotic Stephanie Plum, Gabriela feels competent and proactive, making her an empowering lead in action scenes. Her skills shine in research, improvisation, and handling danger. The plot occasionally sags when trails go cold, relying on escalating villains and misdirection that some find over-the-top or formulaic. Brand-name dropping (clothes, cars, food) and junk-food consumption get noticeable mentions. Character development is light—typical for Evanovich’s plot-heavy approach—but secondary figures can blur together.

A few plot threads (side characters’ fates) feel unresolved. It’s escapist entertainment rather than deep literary fiction; if you want gritty realism or profound themes, look elsewhere. For true fans of this author, it appears the author and publisher will alternate between Stephanie Plum and Gabby for the foreseeable future.

Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE
Gabriela Rose sipped her champagne and looked around the room at the 156 people who had each paid $5,000 to participate in a political fundraiser hosted by Eldridge Parker Rollings. Their contributions had gotten them through the elaborate gated entrance, up the short driveway to valet parking, and through the oversized mahogany front door of Rollings’s Montecito mansion. Once inside they were treated to bargain basement champagne and vegan appetizers. If they wanted their picture snapped with Barry Burlew, a Ringo Starr look-alike and candidate for the California State Assembly, it would cost them another $2,000.

Gabriela was here for reasons other than warm champagne. She’d bought her way onto the guest list because it gave her a unique opportunity to get her hands on a sack of shiny baubles that were worth $13 million, give or take a few cents. This was the first time Gabriela had been in the sprawling Spanish Colonial Revival mansion, but she’d studied photos from a realtor website, and floor plans from blueprints her assistant had provided. She had Google Earth photos and drone videos of the grounds. As it turned out, the videos of the grounds would be the most useful.

In ten minutes, the candidate was going to speak to the crowd and thank them for their support. When everyone was focused on the candidate, Gabriela would leave through an open patio door and slip out into the dark yard. Her only obstacle was Rollings. He was currently standing by the double door, exchanging pleasantries with an elderly couple. Rollings’s girlfriend du jour was plastered against him, reveling in her girlfriend status, basking in Rollings’s wonderfulness.

Rollings and his Russian-born wife, Olga, had bought the house seven years ago, during happier times. Now they were in the final stages of a contentious divorce. Rollings was going to keep the Montecito property, and Olga would get the slope-side Aspen house plus the Bentley and the Malibu beach house. Somehow $13 million in jewelry had disappeared during all the shouting and finger-pointing that had preceded Olga’s final departure in the Bentley. Theft was suggested but never proved.

Rollings submitted an insurance claim and as a result, Gabriela Rose was on the scene, drinking warm champagne, on the clock for the insurer. Insurance Fraud Investigator was printed on her business card, and she had an international reputation for excellence in the field. Most of her jobs had one thing in common. Something needed to be found. And it was a fact that where others had failed, Gabriela was known to succeed.

Gabriela left her secluded corner and pushed through the crowd to join Luis Salazar. He looked bored, standing next to a potted palm in the back of the room. He was retired LAPD. Forty-three years old. Slim and fit. Handsome enough to get bit roles when a film needed a Latino extra. He was also available for freelance security jobs. He knew how to keep a secret, and his morals were flexible. Gabriela had used him on previous jobs when she needed a little extra muscle.

Luis nodded at Gabriela when she approached. “You aren’t actually drinking that piss water, are you?” he asked, looking at the glass of champagne.

“No. Do you want it?”

“Sure. What the hell.” Luis polished off the champagne and set the empty glass in the palm tree’s massive midnight-blue ceramic pot. “When’s showtime?”

“In five minutes, when everyone’s attention turns to the candidate. He’s supposed to address the audience from the platform they’ve placed on the other side of the room. We’ll make our move when he starts to talk.”

“What about Rollings? He’s standing in front of our door.”

“He’s going to introduce the guest of honor,” Gabriela said. “Here we go. He’s checking his watch.”

“And he’s on the move,” Luis said, “along with the woman who’s surgically attached to his hip.”

Rollings stepped onto the stage, the crowd gravitated toward him, and Gabriela and Luis stepped outside, onto the broad, tiled lanai that was lit with vintage gas lanterns. Beyond the lanai was a sloping lawn that quickly disappeared into the dark night. Gabriela knew that a small cottage was sitting in that darkness. It had been the original structure on the property and was now simply a picturesque relic. And beyond the relic was a kitchen well that had also been passed over by time.

Gabriela knew that all of Rollings’s security was concentrated on the front of the house tonight. They were policing the gated entrance and checking IDs at the front door. No one was watching the cameras in the back of the house. And if they were watching, they would see two lovers stealing away, into the dark, to do whatever. And one of them would be carrying her Louboutin slingbacks and walking barefoot.

“I can’t see anything,” Luis said. “I can’t see you next to me. You’re next to me, right?”

“Right,” Gabriela said, reaching out and grabbing him by his jacket sleeve.

It was a moonless night. Gabriela was navigating by periodically looking over her shoulder at the brightly lit mansion. She knew if she continued to walk straight ahead, she would come to a hedgerow and then the cottage. Luis also knew about the cottage because this morning he’d talked his way in as part of the gardening crew. He’d left a pair of rubber boots, a length of rope, a pry bar, and two PVC pipes behind the cottage.

“I don’t mean to be nosy,” Luis said, “but what the hell are we doing? If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were bringing me back here to tie me up and have your way with me. Or maybe to kill me.”

“Neither of those,” Gabriela said. “I need you to help me get the two-hundred-pound capstone off the well and to secure the rope when I rappel down.”

“I assume you have good reason to go into an abandoned well at night?”

“I have a reliable source who, after too many shots of Don Julio, told me that Rollings dumped his wife’s jewelry into the well. Rollings told him that Olga got the Bentley and two houses, and he’d go to his grave before she got her hands on her jewelry.”

“He didn’t trust a safe-deposit box?”

“Not for a second.”

“I like it. I’m guessing you aren’t going to keep the jewelry,” Luis said.

“Tempting, but no.”

Gabriela suddenly stopped short but Luis crashed into the shrubbery.

“Shit,” he whispered. “What the fuck?”

“Good work, you found the hedgerow,” Gabriela said.

They carefully walked past the hedge and around the cottage. The well was in the shadow of the cottage and wasn’t visible from the main house, so Gabriela took a penlight out of her Birkin bag and clicked it on. She dropped her shoes and her bag onto the ground and stripped her little black dress off over her head and handed it to Luis. She had black techno tights and a rash guard on under her dress. She unrolled the legs of the tights to just above her knee and stepped into the boots Luis had brought earlier.

“I feel overdressed,” Luis said.

“You don’t have to go into the well. And you aren’t wearing a two-thousand-dollar dress.”

“All good things,” Luis said.

They pried the capstone off the well and moved it to the side.

Gabriela flashed the penlight down the shaft. The walls of the well were stone, covered in slime. She judged the width to be three feet and the depth to be thirty to forty feet. It looked like there was water at the bottom. She hoped it wasn’t too deep. Her boots only went to midcalf. Luis gripped the rope and Gabriela rappelled down. She splashed into about two inches of water at the bottom and then it was soft muck. No visible snakes. No frogs. Just disgusting muck. She kicked around and felt something solid underfoot. Her heart skipped a beat. She put her hand into the muck and pulled out a plastic ziplock gallon freezer bag filled with jewelry. She continued to slosh around and push through the muck with her hand to make sure there were no more bags.

“What’s going on?” Luis called down. “Everything okay?”

“I found it. I’m coming up. Hold tight.”

In less than a minute she was out of the well with the bag tucked into her tights.

“What were you in a previous life?” Luis asked. “Marine commando? Where’d you learn to climb like that?”

“I’ve had some tactical training. Comes in handy.”

“No shit.”

Gabriela kicked her boots off and took stock of the tights and rash guard. “These are going to have to go,” she said. “They’re muddy and slimy.”

She peeled them off and was left in her La Perla bra and panties.

“I love this job,” Luis said, handing her the dress.

She slipped into the dress and took a plastic bag out of her purse. She emptied the jewelry into the clean bag, dropped it into her Birkin, and stepped into the boots.

“What about your muddy clothes and the equipment?” Luis asked.

“Leave everything here. And we’ll leave the capstone off. The police will be here in the morning. They can re-cap the well. I’ll shuck the boots when we get closer to the house.”

“Going back will be easier,” Luis said. “We just head for the lights and the noise.”

Gabriela agreed. Nothing in front of them but lawn and party house. She forged ahead in total darkness, carrying her shoes and Birkin bag. The lawn close to the house was perfectly manicured. The lawn further out, closer to the hedgerow, was thick and unruly, going to seed. Luis was walking slightly ahead of Gabriela. She heard his foot connect with something, there was an ungodly shriek, and a creature jumped out of the high grass and attacked Luis.

He was close enough to the house for some ambient light to show him in outline, all flailing arms and a large winged creature hopping on him, beating him with its wings. Gabriela ran to help, and in an instant, the creature turned on her, screaming and attacking, slashing her dress with its talons, pecking at her Birkin.

“Stand back and I’ll shoot it,” Luis said.

“It’s a peacock,” Gabriela said, swatting at the bird, trying to keep it away from the Birkin. “You can’t shoot a peacock.”

“The hell I can’t,” Luis said.

The peacock left Gabriela and returned to Luis, gaining some altitude before it dive-bombed him. Gabriela threw her shoe at it. The bird caught it midair and awkwardly flapped away.

“What the hell?” Luis said.

“I didn’t see that coming,” Gabriela said, plucking a large feather from her hair. She got the penlight out and looked at the feather. “Definitely peacock.”

“No way. You’re kidding, right?”

“You must have stumbled onto her nest.”

“This is embarrassing,” Luis said. “I just came out on the losing end with a peacock.”

“It took my shoe!”

“Sorry about the shoe. I hope it was one you didn’t like.”

“It was a Louboutin slingback.”

“I don’t know what that means, but I appreciate the effort you made to save me from death by peacock,” Luis said. “Am I going to get combat pay?”

“No, but I’ll buy you a new suit.”

They skirted the back of the house, entered through the kitchen door, and went straight to the front foyer and valet parking.

“Whoa,” the valet said when Gabriela and Luis stepped forward. “That must be some party in there.”

Their clothes were shredded. Hair was scarecrow. Gabriela was in rubber boots, carrying a single slingback.

“We stepped outside for air, and we were attacked by a peacock,” Gabriela said.

The valet nodded. “Yeah, they’re vicious at this time of the year. They lay their eggs all over the backyard. They’ll peck your eye out. I guess you didn’t get the peacock memo.”

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#Review - Witches of Dubious Origin by Jenn McKinlay #Cozy #Fantasy

2026-04-22T12:00:00.000-04:00

Series: Books of Dubious Origin # 1
Format: 358 pages, Paperback

Release Date: October 28, 2025
Publisher: Ace
Source: Publisher
Genre: Cozy, Fantasy

When a librarian discovers she’s descended from a long line of powerful witches, she’ll need all of her bookish knowledge to harness her family’s magic, in this enchanting cozy fantasy from New York Times bestselling author Jenn McKinlay.

Zoe Ziakas enjoys a quiet life, working as a librarian in her quaint New England town. When a mysterious black book with an unbreakable latch is delivered to the library, Zoe has a strange feeling that the tome is somehow calling to her. She decides to consult the Museum of Literature, home to volumes of indecipherable secrets, some of which possess dark magic that must be guarded.

Here, among their most dangerous collection, the Books of Dubious Origin, Zoe discovers that she is the last descendant of a family of witches and this little black book is their grimoire. Zoe knows she must decode the family’s spell book and solve the mystery of what happened to her mother and her grandmother. However, the book’s potential power draws all things magical to it, and Zoe finds herself under the constant watch of a pesky raven, while being chased by undead Vikings, ghost pirates, and assorted ghouls.

With assistance from the eccentric staff of the Books of Dubious Origin department—including their annoyingly smart and handsome containment specialist, Jasper Griffin—Zoe must confront her past and the legacy of her family. But as their adventure unfolds, she’ll have to decide whether or not she’s ready to embrace her destiny.

Witches of Dubious Origin is the first book in author Jenn McKinlay's Books of Dubious Origin series. Zoe Ziakas leads a quiet, orderly life as a reference librarian in a small New England town in Wessex, Connecticut. She's pragmatic, fact-driven, and has deliberately distanced herself from any hints of the supernatural—especially after the personal loss of her own mother a month ago. Her routine shatters when a mysterious black book with an unbreakable latch arrives at the library.

The tome seems to call to her in an inexplicable way. Curious (and a bit unnerved), Zoe, with help from Agatha Lively, seeks answers at the prestigious Museum of Literature in New York City, home to the special collection known as the Books of Dubious Origin—volumes filled with secrets, some laced with dark magic that require careful guarding. After meeting with key characters who will be her guides along the way (Jasper, Olive, Tariq, and Miles), she learns a stunning truth: she is the last descendant of a powerful line of witches, and the insistent black book is none other than her family's sentient grimoire.

What follows is Zoe's reluctant journey into a hidden world of magic, where she must harness her inherited powers (with a strong necromantic bent), decode dangerous spells, and navigate threats from both the living and the undead. Along the way, she encounters undead figures (think Vikings and other surprises), a pesky raven, ghost pirates, and a found family of witch-librarians at the museum. A shadowy, dark witch lurks as the primary antagonist, tied to Zoe's family history in tragic ways.

The story mixes cozy vibes with higher-stakes adventure, including elements of mystery and a light romantic thread with a sexy mage. The Museum of Literature and its "Books of Dubious Origin" collection feel like a dream destination for any book lover—enchanted grimoires, indecipherable tomes, and the idea that certain books need literal guarding add a delightful layer of whimsy. At 36, Zoe is a refreshingly adult heroine—practical, a bit repressed about her magic, and initially resistant to the chaos.

Her growth from denying her heritage to embracing (and cleverly using) her powers, often through bookish knowledge rather than raw talent, is satisfying. The magical elements stand out for their variety and fun integration. Sentient books, necromancy with a twist, undead characters, and creative spellwork tied to literature make the world feel fresh rather than generic. The book isn't without minor flaws.

The first half can feel repetitive as Zoe processes her revelations, and the central conflict follows a somewhat predictable cozy trajectory (with the big showdown arriving late). The higher-stakes elements (murder in the family history, a vengeful dark witch) occasionally push against the "cozy" label, though they don't tip into grim territory. World-building is strong but might feel info-dumpy in spots as Zoe learns the ropes.

McKinlay’s first foray into the fantasy genre delivers a satisfying romance wrapped in a warm, magical story with a sharp-witted, bighearted witch at its core. Will likely continue as it appears that the author has plans for writing more books featuring Zoe and crew.

1

Package for you, Zoe." Bill Reed, my coworker at the Wessex Public Library, dropped a thick padded envelope, clearly holding a book, onto my desk. I glanced up at him. I was the reference librarian. He was acquisitions. Generally, book purchases went right to him.

Bill shrugged at the confusion on my face. "I know, but it's addressed to you and stamped Personal."

I glanced at the brown envelope. Sure enough, there was the stamp in an imperative shade of red right above the handwritten name Zoanne Ziakas-my name-and the library's address. Weirdly, there was no postmark or stamps or anything to indicate it had been delivered the usual way through the post office.

"Be careful opening it." Bill's eyes narrowed behind his wire-framed glasses. "It could be-"

He paused. Clearly his imagination had run out or he was hesitant to say bomb or poison or whatever nefarious thing could possibly be stuffed into a nine-by-twelve-inch padded envelope. Bill had the pasty complexion of a man who'd spent his adult life under fluorescent lighting. He was in his fifties, happily married to his wife, Meredith, of thirty years. They had two kids in college and spent most of their time dreaming about retirement. There wasn't much that disturbed Bill, so I was surprised by his unusual caution.

"Could be what?" I prodded.

"I don't know." He ran a hand over his thinning hair in a self-soothing gesture. "I just have a bad feeling about it."

"It's probably a catalog from a publisher or a library supply company that got misdirected to me," I said. Although, when I studied the loopy script of my name written in felt-tip pen, I felt the hair on the back of my neck prickle, and a flutter of alarm tickled my insides. I knew this handwriting. It was my mother's.

No, it couldn't be. My mother had passed away a month ago. There was no way she could have addressed this envelope from beyond the grave. It was just an unfortunate coincidence. Shaking off the unsettling feeling, I grabbed my scissors and sliced the envelope open. It didn't explode. No plume of poisonous smoke was emitted. Instead, out fell a thick black book encircled with a half-inch metal band that was engraved with a series of interlocking lines similar to a Celtic knot. The band latched into a decorative hexagon on the front cover. Fancy.

"Well, that underwhelms," Bill said. He appeared visibly relieved. "Looks like a journal of some sort. You were right. It's probably a promo item from a publisher."

I set the book down and glanced into the envelope. There was no note explaining what the book was, no flyer, nothing. I put the envelope aside and picked up the book. I pressed on the hexagon, thinking that might open the band. It didn't work. I tried turning the hexagon. It didn't budge.

"It's a pretty pricey item for a promo," I said. "Especially since I can't open it."

"Do you want me to try?" he offered.

"Go for it." I handed him the book.

Bill did the same pressing and twisting that I had. He tried to tug on the band but it was secured too tightly to give him any leverage. He handed it back and I returned it to its envelope for safekeeping.

"What we have here is a very decorative paperweight," he concluded.

I laughed. I opened my desk's bottom drawer and dropped the book inside. "I'll look at it later."

Bill headed back to his office, and I returned to my weekly report, forgetting all about the strange black book.

October was my favorite month, when the sticky humidity of summer departed and jeans-and-sweater weather returned. As I walked the half mile from the library to my cottage, I reveled in the chilly temperatures, the scent of wood fires on the air, and the satisfying crunch of leaves under my feet.

The village of Wessex, where I lived and worked, was nestled between the Appalachian Trail and the Housatonic River, in the northwestern corner of Connecticut. It was a small community known for the private boarding school that resided on the west side of the river. I had attended that school before leaving to go to university in New Haven and then doubling back here to the only place that had ever felt like home.

As soon as I stepped inside my cottage, I slipped into my pajamas while I microwaved a big bowl of mac and cheese. I flicked on the television and scrolled through the streaming channels until I found a mystery series I had yet to watch. I preferred the British ones because I loved that the actors and actresses in them looked like real people, as opposed to American television shows, where everyone looks like a supermodel pretending to be a real person.

I was halfway through my bowl of cheesy goodness and a third of the way through the first episode when I heard a thump on my front porch. I paused the show and stopped chewing, listening intently. Living in Wessex, where everyone knew everyone, I wasn't as worried about crime as I was about a neighbor dropping by to chat. It wasn't that bad things didn't happen here-of course they did-it was just that it was very rare, and usually the person who did the crime was known for having a dented moral compass, so it wasn't a big surprise.

Thump!

The noise sounded again, only more forcefully. Putting my bowl down on the coffee table, I shoved my chenille throw aside and crossed the room to the front door, switching on the outside light. I peered out the side window that looked onto the porch before opening the door. If it was a rabid raccoon looking for food, I didn't want to get into it with him. The porch was empty.

Just to be certain everything was all right, I opened the door and poked my head out. I glanced from side to side, seeing only my large potted geranium on one side and my small wicker table and two chairs on the other. Satisfied, I went to close the door and glanced down at the doormat. I gasped. Placed on the center of the mat was the same envelope that Bill had delivered to me at work. But I knew I had left it in my desk drawer. What the hell was it doing here?

I glanced around the porch to see if someone was lurking in the shadows, playing a prank on me. It wasn't really Bill's style-he was more of a dad-joke type of guy-but he was the only person who knew about the book, so logic dictated it had to be him.

"Not funny, Bill!" I called into the darkening evening. There was no answer. No one was there.

I picked up the envelope and pulled the book out, experiencing the same twinge of unease I'd felt before. A flash of green lit the porch as the envelope was immediately engulfed in emerald flames. I yelped and dropped it. In seconds the envelope was gone, leaving no ash or smoke behind. I examined my hand and noted that the weird neon fire hadn't even felt hot.

I glanced out at the street, making certain no one had seen what had just happened. Ever since my childhood, unexpected magic had always made me anxious.

I took another look around the porch and yard before I went back inside, then locked the dead bolt. I studied the aged volume more closely. It was a shade of black so matte it seemed to soak up light. The edges of the pages were jagged and uneven. And the book's hexagonal metal latch was rusted from humidity or lack of use, I couldn't tell which. I brought it to the kitchen, thinking I could open it with a knife.

Not wanting to lose a finger, I chose a butter knife. I slid it under the decorative metal band and tried to pry it loose. The metal didn't budge. I tried to pop the hexagon with the blade as well, but it held fast. I set down the utensil and glanced at the door. If it wasn't Bill who had dropped the book off and made the envelope go poof . . . nope. I refused to go there.

The pin pricked my finger and blood beaded up out of the wound. I yelped and dropped the pin. Drops of blood dripped from my middle finger and I pressed my thumb to the tip to stop the flow. Had I just stabbed myself with a pin . . . on purpose? I blinked. I glanced down, noting that I was wearing my pajamas.

Relief whooshed inside me. It was okay. It was just a dream. An awful, stupid, painful dream. I shook my head, trying to wake myself up. It didn't work. It couldn't . . . because I was already awake.

I glanced down at my kitchen counter, where small splats of blood marred the smooth surface. The battered old book that I had tucked into my shoulder bag earlier sat on the granite beneath my pricked finger.

Shit! I had almost bled on the book. I spun away from the counter and rinsed my finger in the sink. What the hell had just happened? Sleepwalking? Night terrors? Had I actually pricked myself with a pin? Why?

Grabbing a paper towel, I wiped the blood off the granite. I rinsed off the pin and returned it to the container I kept in the utility drawer at the end of the counter. I threw the towel in the trash and stood, staring at the book in confusion. What was the book doing on the counter when I was certain I had put it in my bag?

Insistent whispers sounded at the edge of my mind. Like shadows that faded as the sun rose, the words weren't quite loud enough for me to make out, but I knew. I knew without a doubt that those whispers had been in my dreams and that they had instructed me to stab myself with the straight pin. I glanced down. Goose bumps raised on my forearms as I gazed at the black book. I ran an uninjured finger over the cover, half expecting it to be absorbed into the black leather, as if it could pull me in just as it seemed to soak in the light. It didn't and I lifted my hand and noted my fingers were trembling.

I'd had a strange feeling about this mysterious volume from the moment I'd first touched it, and I knew of only one person who might be able to help me.

2

You think grief is making me lose it," I said.

During the month since my mother had passed away, Agatha Lively-my friend, mentor, and auntie all rolled into one loving yet bossy package-had repeatedly encouraged me to go to grief counseling, even though my mother and I had been estranged for years. I'd refused, feeling that I couldn't grieve a woman I didn't know. In my heart I understood that the only thing I mourned was that any chance at a relationship with my mother was now gone forever. Okay, so maybe some counseling wouldn't have been completely out of order.

"I didn't say that, Zoe." Agatha lifted the crocheted cozy that resembled a fat white goose off the delicate Haviland teapot and poured me a cup of rose hip tea. She was a big believer in its antioxidant properties. "I merely pointed out that you haven't slept properly since your mother's funeral, and this might be because you're sleep-deprived." She gestured at my finger with the Mickey Mouse bandage on it with a pointed look.

"No judgment, please. I am a meagerly paid public servant and these were on sale."

"I don't remember you being a sleepwalker. Is this a new development?" She ignored the explanation of my choice of bandage, which I wouldn't have needed except that the pinprick had been pretty deep. I was relieved to be up on my tetanus vaccination.

"No, as far as I know I've never done anything like this before." I took the teacup she offered. We were seated in the cluttered front parlor of Agatha's house. It was an old Victorian that sat prominently on the Wessex town green and had been in the Lively family for generations. Agatha was the last surviving Lively, and the house was packed to the rafters with her family's odd heirlooms, treasures, and tchotchkes. None of which she would consider parting with despite the collective mess. Having lived with her during my school vacations, I had tried to declutter it to no avail.

Sometimes I worried that Agatha would be done in by a falling stack of books or she'd trip on the variety of small cauldrons that lined the outer edge of the steps on the central staircase or, even more horrifically, she'd be eaten by one of the many sundew plants in the greenhouse. Yes, they were carnivorous and they gave me the heebie-jeebies. Although, to give credit where credit was due, she never seemed to have a problem with insects of any kind.

Agatha was short and curvy, with a deep brown complexion, white hair that fell in orderly ringlets to her shoulders, and professorial dark-rimmed glasses, which she lowered so she could peer at me with her direct deep brown eyes when she asked, "Have you tried taking valerian root?"

"Is it candy?" I met her gaze and she sighed.

"Of course you haven't. How you have survived to almost forty years of age from the nutrition found in a vending machine is beyond me."

I smiled, mostly because it was true. Not only had Agatha been my legal guardian since I was fourteen, she had also been my first boss. Like her, I was a librarian and Agatha had hired me fresh out of library school fifteen years ago when she was the director of the Wessex Public Library.

She had witnessed firsthand how I'd cobbled together my meals of Rice Krispies Treats (breakfast), Cheez-Its (lunch), and Snickers (dinner), preferably with a cola, not diet, on the side. Of course, I ate other stuff, but those were my mainstays.

"Ignoring my poor nutrition for the moment, what do you think of the book?" I asked.

Agatha sipped from her cup as if bracing herself. She set it down on its saucer atop an impressive stack of magazines. I'd sat in this room thousands of times over the years and I still had no idea what the coffee table beneath all the magazines and books looked like.

"You absolutely can't open it?" she asked.

"No. Whatever sort of lock is on it, it's impossible to crack. Believe me, I tried everything." I took the book out of the canvas bag at my feet and handed it to her.

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#Review - A Murder of Crows by Steve McHugh #Urban #Fantasy

2026-04-20T12:00:00.001-04:00

Series: Riftborn # 5
Format: Kindle, 295 pages
Release Date: January 20, 2026
Publisher: Podium Publishing
Source: Kindle Unlimited
Genre: Urban Fantasy

A dangerous game of ancient power will push the last raven to the edge of his limits in the fifth installment of this hardboiled fantasy noir series.

Lucas Rurik is used to being on the bad end of a terrible deal. He’s survived wars, seen his entire Guild murdered, and saved reality from certain doom more times than he’d care to count. But none of that has prepared him for the mess he’s currently in.

It seems his nemesis, Dr. Callie Mitchell, has tapped into the deepest magic in the Rift and destroyed one of the oldest rift-fused beings, tasked with ensuring the balance of power in the universe. No one knows what she’ll do next, and the surviving Ancients seem too distracted by their petty squabbles to take matters into their own all-powerful hands. So it’s once again up to Lucas to poke his nose where it doesn’t belong and attempt to negotiate with beings that most definitely don’t want to be reasoned with.

The clock is ticking, and Lucas will have to tap alliances and use every trick he has up his sleeve to stop a cosmically mighty madwoman on a mission. And time isn’t the only thing working against him. The secrets he uncovers could spell the undoing of everything, both on Earth and in the Rift . . .

A Murder of Crows is the Fifth and final installment in author Steve McHugh's Riftborn series. The Riftborn series follows Lucas Rurik, the last surviving member of the Raven Guild—a riftborn operative with unique abilities tied to a parallel magical realm called the Rift. The books blend hardboiled detective vibes, supernatural action, and escalating threats involving ancient powers, rift-fused beings, and dangerous human (or near-human) antagonists.

Lucas has endured wars, the murder of his entire Guild, and multiple reality-saving crises. In A Murder of Crows, his longtime nemesis, Dr. Callie Mitchell—a brilliant but unhinged scientist obsessed with rift magic—crosses a catastrophic line. She taps into the deepest forces of the Rift and eliminates one of the Ancients: ancient, rift-fused entities meant to maintain universal balance. With the surviving Ancients distracted by their own petty conflicts, the burden falls on Lucas and his allies once again.

He must negotiate with beings who have little interest in cooperation, forge uneasy alliances, and deploy every trick, skill, and favor at his disposal to stop a threat that could unravel both Earth and the Rift. Secrets uncovered along the way carry devastating personal and existential weight, pushing Lucas to his absolute limits. Lucas's allies aren't just convenient sidekicks; they're competent professionals who evolve into a genuine found family.

They communicate openly, offer and accept help, show vulnerability without turning it into endless angst, and balance ruthlessness (when permanently neutralizing threats) with real care and loyalty. Compared to McHugh's Hellequin work, Riftborn starts a bit more grounded in noir/detective mode before expanding, which some may love for its growth, and others might find slower to hook them initially.

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#Review - White Wolf by Eric Van Lustbader #Thriller #Suspense #Espionage

2026-04-15T00:00:00.002-04:00

Series: Evan Ryder # 5
Format: 352 pages, Hardcover

Release Date: December 2, 2025
Publisher: Forge Books
Source: Library
Genre: Thriller, Suspense, Espionage

New York Times bestselling author Eric Van Lustbader pits Evan Ryder against a new and unfathomable threat in this heart-stopping new installment of this blockbuster thriller series!

In this cutting-edge installment of the acclaimed thriller series, New York Times bestselling author Eric Van Lustbader thrusts readers into a world where power is being redefined by a revolutionary communication program that renders modern encryption obsolete, one that will topple global power structures and give rise to technology-driven totalitarian states.

Evan Ryder races against time in a landscape where secrets can no longer hide behind digital walls. Ilona Shokova, the elusive, deadly assassin White Wolf, holds the key to mastering this unhackable method.

Two powerful, deadly women, one quest. Will either one of them survive?

In this pulse-pounding thriller, the future isn't just written in code - it's locked behind it.

White Wolf by Eric Van Lustbader is the Fifth installment in the author's Evan Ryder series. This book has way too many narratives for me to list, so I will get right to the story. Evan Ryder, a survivor of profound personal tragedy who has dedicated her life to covert operations, finds herself in a desperate race against time. A revolutionary new communication program threatens to render all modern encryption obsolete, potentially upending global power structures and paving the way for technology-driven totalitarian regimes.

Secrets can no longer hide behind digital walls, and control of this unhackable technology is the ultimate prize. At the center of the chaos is Ilona Shokova, codenamed the White Wolf—an elusive, deadly Russian assassin and operative who holds the key to mastering this groundbreaking method. Described as an almost inhuman killing machine, Ilona carries on a legendary (and originally male-associated) legacy with ruthless efficiency. Evan’s mission becomes deeply personal when a young Russian boy named Timur—whom she regards as a son—is taken hostage and used as leverage.

Blackmailed after a violent attack, Evan must track down the White Wolf, navigate treacherous alliances (including with tech figures and her sometime lover), and retrieve a bizarre item tied to the conspiracy, all while racing to save Timur and prevent catastrophic global fallout. The story pits two formidable, deadly women against each other in a high-stakes quest where survival is far from guaranteed. The story has numerous locations, including Japan and Malaysia.

The premise feels timely and relevant—exploring how unbreakable communication tech could destabilize nations and empower authoritarian control—without getting bogged down in excessive technobabble. The cat-and-mouse dynamic between Evan Ryder and the White Wolf generates strong tension, amplified by the personal stakes involving Timur. Evan remains a compelling protagonist: resilient, skilled, and driven by both duty and deep emotional wounds, while the supporting cast (including recurring figures from prior books, such as her own sister) adds layers of alliances and betrayals.

Ilona Shokova is a formidable antagonist, but her near-mythic portrayal sometimes borders on larger-than-life, which works in the thriller genre yet might feel less nuanced to readers seeking deeper psychological depth. The story serves well as a series capper or a late entry, though starting with The Nemesis Manifesto provides fuller context for character relationships and ongoing arcs.

1

SUMATRA, NORTHEAST COAST

MARCH

They had spent themselves physically. Their entwining—sometimes violent, sometimes sensual, always desperate—had taken over four hours. Now they lay, still entwined, two lizards stunned into immobility, drenched in sweat, the sour-sweet odor of sex wafting off them like incense.

Wrapped in Marsden Tribe’s strong arms, Evan Ryder allowed his warmth to sink into her. It was an altogether different heat from what she felt beneath the Sumatran sun or from any other sun, for that matter. The warmth exuded privacy and, she supposed, privilege, something in which she had no interest. But she did have interest in Tribe. He was a tech genius, a multibillionaire, the founder and owner of Parachute, the world’s most advanced, privately owned quantum tech company.

He had fascinated Evan so deeply since she had met him nearly two years before, that she not only continued to work for him but now made love to him every month, his private jet always arriving when expected at the airstrip on the landside periphery of the enormous estate he owned. Here in the main villa, built atop a small headland with steps down to the beach, she had lived for a year. And over the course of that year, Tribe had signed long-term deals with the word-salad branches of the DOD, the Pentagon, NSA, a strategic portion of the Fortune 500 companies, as well as every tech company not named Google, Meta, Amazon, or Apple, all of which depended on Parachute’s hyper-speed quantum computer clusters for everything from enhanced AI workflow to end-to-end cybersecurity. Publicly, Evan was just another member of Parachute’s security division. In reality, she was its prime field agent, continuing the clandestine work she had done for Ben Butler’s team under the DOD umbrella.

She began to roll over but Tribe’s arms caught her. He stirred, rose out of sleep, and within moments their naked bodies entwined once more. He was an insatiable lover, perhaps because they were together only the one night each month. Inventive, too. She’d never been with a man who knew his way around the art of sex like Marsden Tribe.

Afterward, sweat-slicked, sated, he closed his eyes, asleep in seconds. She waited for her heart rate to return to normal, then unwound herself from him. Slipping out of bed, she shivered. Tribe insisted on keeping the air-conditioning on while he was in residence, whereas Evan preferred to be lulled to sleep by the night concerto of tree frogs, crickets, cicadas, moths. She crossed to the sliders, unlocked them, stepped out onto the expansive terrace. There were any number of exotic species of birds indigenous to the island but her favorite by far was the regal black-crowned night heron. Lucky for her the stream just yards away from where she stood was home to one. The water, reflecting the moon, wound from the interior, spilling into the sea. She saw the night heron by the light of the moon and the thick river of stars, tall, majestic, moving slowly or not at all, its head directed at the water through which it high-stepped. It saw her as she saw it—she was sure of it; sure, too, that it ducked its head in acknowledgment of being in the same place at the same time.

She leaned against the railing, watching the bird hunt in its singular fashion. She breathed the hot, humid air, heavily laden with night-blooming jasmine, frangipani, Melati. She still felt Tribe’s sweat on her, his musk, and she grew wet between her thighs. As if her body became aware of him an instant before her mind, she felt his arm snake around her waist. She took his hand, ran a finger over the wide silver band circling his right wrist. He never took it off, at least not in her presence.

“Do you want to know how Timur is progressing?” she asked huskily.

For just a moment a cauldron of bats defaced the moon, then were swallowed up by the blackness.

“Are you happy here, Evan?”

“Why should I be happy here?”

“You’ve been here in my villa for over a year.”

“And yet it feels like Lyudmila died yesterday.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t condescend, Marsden. You never cared a fig about her.”

“But I care about you.”

She took a breath, let it out slowly. She was not about to pull on that string. She tilted her head forward. “You see that bird in the stream?”

“The night heron, you mean.”

She nodded, trying not to be surprised that he knew; but then he knew most everything. That was the scariest thing about him; it was also why she was drawn to him.

“The black-crowned night heron, yes. It took months, but we’ve developed a relationship, he and I.”

“Should I be jealous?” He was half mocking.

“Seriously, we have a connection. Time and again, we’re out here together, we recognize each other in the shadows and we communicate.”

“And how do you communicate with a bird?”

“It’s a secret,” she whispered.

She could feel him moving beside her, a restlessness she had come to recognize as one of his trademarks. It was also a tell, if you knew him well enough. Very few did. To them it seemed like he was drifting, when really he was flowing, like mercury.

“Tonight this island, this sea, this night,” he whispered into the shell of her ear, “was made for love.”

She gave no response, stayed quite still as he stepped behind her, spread her legs. Soon enough all thoughts flew away like the night heron, having sated itself. Before dawn they too, were, at last, sated.

* * *

A week after Tribe’s departure, the afternoon idled, glazed with a heavy light, heat and humidity combining to turn skin sweat-slicked, nut-brown. The intense blue, the white sand, green trees at their backs, here and there shadow-shot beneath the clattering canopies of palm trees.

Evan Ryder and Timur Shokov had just finished their daily ten-mile run. They had started months ago, running in the morning, just before sunrise, when the air was still cool, the humidity tolerable. But as Timur’s stamina grew, multiplying swiftly, she had amped up their workout under the blazing tropical sun. Wordlessly, plunging into the surf, they cooled their bodies, then ran back up onto the beach.

Rehydrating with bottles of ice-cold water fetched from an insulated case, they stared at each other, their shared past scrolling through their minds, tremorous chords connecting them.

“Today,” Timur said, “is my mother’s birthday.”

Evan dipped her head. “I’ve been feeling her.”

“I know.”

She looked up. “Really.”

“I do.” He drank more water. “I can always tell.”

Evan frowned. She had thought she kept her sorrow separate from him, just as she kept Tribe’s nighttime visits separate. “How?”

“You get this expression.” He broke off, shook his head. “No, that’s not right. Your eyes … they get, I don’t know, dark, I guess you could say.”

“I apologize. I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t,” he said. “Apologize, I mean.”

“Timur, I—”

“There’s no need.” He put the empty bottle neck down back in the ice. “I mean it. Really.”

She smiled, knew it was a sad smile. “She’s so close, sometimes, I swear I can hear her voice.” Her voice telling me to take care of you while she bled out in my arms. Now she looked away so he wouldn’t see the tears glittering, making her eyes huge, glossy.

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#Review - Fallen City by Adrienne Young #Historical #Fantasy

2026-04-14T00:00:00.001-04:00

Series: Fallen City Duology # 1
Format: 416 pages, Hardcover

Release Date: November 4, 2025
Publisher: Saturday Books
Source: Publisher
Genre: Historical, Fantasy

Luca Matius has one purpose—to carry on the family name and maintain its presence in the Forum once his powerful and cruel uncle dies. But his noviceship with the city's Philosopher places him in the middle of a catastrophe that will alter the destiny of his people.

Maris Casperia was raised amidst the strategic maneuvers of the Citadel's inner workings, and she knows what her future holds—a lifetime of service to a corrupt city. But her years of serving as a novice to the last Priestess who possesses the stolen magic of the Old War have made her envision a different kind of future for the city. When she meets Luca, a fated chain of events is set into motion that will divinely entangle their lives.

As a secret comes to light and throws the city into chaos, Luca and Maris hatch a plot to create a calculated alliance that could tip the scales of power. But when an execution forces Luca to become the symbol of rebellion, he and Maris are thrown onto opposite sides of a holy war. As their fates diverge, they learn they are at the center of a story the gods are writing. And even if they can find their way back to each other, there may be nothing left.

Fallen City by Adrienne Young is the first installment in the Fallen City Duology, a Greco-Roman-inspired historical fantasy romance that blends political intrigue, forbidden love, rebellion, and divine intervention. Set in the opulent yet decaying walled city of Isara—divided by the Sophanes River into the elite Citadel District and the struggling lower quarters—the story unfolds across dual timelines labeled "NOW" and "BEFORE." These timelines gradually converge to reveal the full picture of a rebellion simmering for a century. The book also alternates between two protagonists (Luca Marius and Maris Casperia).

Luca Matius, a disciplined legionnaire and centurion from a powerful family tied to the Forum, burdened with carrying on his cruel uncle's legacy while apprenticing under the city's Philosopher. On the other side is Maris Casperia (or Casoeria in some descriptions), the sharp and strategic daughter of a Magistrate, raised in the corrupt inner circles of power and trained as a novice to the last Priestess who holds remnants of stolen magic from an ancient war. Their fated meeting ignites a chain of events that entangles their lives with the gods themselves.

When a dangerous secret surfaces amid growing unrest, Luca and Maris form a calculated alliance in a bid to shift the balance of power. But an execution catapults Luca into the role of reluctant rebel symbol, thrusting the lovers onto opposite sides of a holy war. Themes of loyalty, sacrifice, corruption, and divine will drive the plot, as the city teeters on the brink of collapse. The story incorporates elements like a deceptive lottery system, meddling gods, political scheming, and the weight of legacy in a society ripe for revolution.

Young's Greco-Roman-inspired world is complete with chitons, forums, legions, philosophers, and priestesses. The setting feels gritty yet glittering—opulent marble halls contrasting with the desperation of the lower districts—creating a palpable sense of a civilization on the edge of implosion. Political intrigue, class warfare, and the interplay between religion/magic and state power add layers of depth, making Isara feel alive and consequential. Dual POV enhances intimacy with each character's inner conflicts, while the divine elements—gods writing the city's story—add a mythic, almost tragic grandeur reminiscent of classical epics.

Complaints? Yes. While ambitious and effective at building mystery, the story can feel distancing or confusing for some, keeping readers at arm's length and preventing them from fully emotionally investing in Luca and Maris early on. Pacing occasionally suffers as timelines unfold, with certain revelations or emotional beats landing less impactfully due to the fragmented presentation.

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#Review - The Faraway Inn by Sarah Beth Durst #YA #Contemporary #Fantasy

2026-04-13T12:00:00.001-04:00

Series: Standalone
Format: 372 pages, Paperback

Release Date: March 31, 2026
Publisher: Delacorte
Source: Publisher
Genre: YA, Contemporary, Fantasy

After a devastating heartbreak, a teen girl decides to spend her summer helping her eccentric great aunt manage her quaint Vermont inn--but this fixer-upper is hiding a magical secret--in this cozy and irresistible new fantasy from the New York Times bestselling author of The Spellshop.

Sixteen-year-old Calisa is desperate for a change of scenery after her lying ex ruins her perfect Brooklyn summer. When her parents suggest she head to rural Vermont to help her great-aunt run her cozy bed-and-breakfast for a few months, she jumps at the chance.

But when Calisa arrives at the B&B, she's shocked to find a rundown inn with only a handful of guests. And to make matters worse, upon meeting with her great-aunt it quickly becomes clear that Calisa was not invited. Auntie Zee is determined to keep anyone from messing with her beloved inn…even if it is clear she needs the help.

To earn her keep, Calisa sets to work fixing up the inn, enlisting extra help from the groundskeeper's (handsome) son. But the longer she stays, the more it becomes evident that there is something strange about the B&B—and its residents. Something almost…otherworldly.

The inn is keeping a magical secret—but to protect the place she's come to love, Calisa must unravel the truth of it, and her aunt, before it's too late.

The Faraway Inn by Sarah Beth Durst is a delightful, cozy YA fantasy that perfectly captures the healing power of a summer spent fixing up a quirky inn while uncovering family secrets and a touch of magic. Sixteen-year-old Calisa flees her Brooklyn life after a devastating breakup with her cheating ex-boyfriend, who shatters her plans for the perfect summer before senior year. Eager for escape, she heads to rural Vermont to help her eccentric great-aunt Zee run the Faraway Inn, a bed-and-breakfast she vaguely remembers from childhood as cozy and welcoming.

Upon arrival, reality hits hard: the inn is a rundown fixer-upper with a sagging porch, overgrown gardens, a dusty library, and very few guests. Grumpy Auntie Zee seems less than thrilled to have her there and actively resists any changes or help. Undeterred, Calisa rolls up her sleeves, enlists the aid of the charming groundskeeper’s son, Jack (who brings a sweet romantic spark), and sets about restoring the place with determination and Brooklyn grit. As renovations progress, strange occurrences pile up—quirky guests with odd behaviors, inexplicable events, and hints that the inn holds deeper, magical secrets.

Calisa must unravel the truth to protect the place she’s grown to love, all while learning to open her heart again and discovering her own connections to the inn’s hidden world. The story blends heartfelt coming-of-age elements with light fantasy, where doors might lead to more than just rooms, and family legacies come with whimsical surprises. The Vermont setting feels alive and inviting despite its initial shabbiness—think tangled vines, creaky floors, and a library begging for attention.

The atmosphere is frosted with joy, making readers want to check in and never leave. Calisa is a relatable, resilient protagonist whose heartbreak feels authentic without overwhelming the tone. Her growth from jaded teen to someone embracing change and magic is satisfying and gentle. Auntie Zee starts as a wonderfully grumpy, antagonistic figure but reveals layers of eccentricity and protectiveness that make her endearing.

Supporting cast members, including the handsome groundskeeper’s son and the inn’s eclectic guests, add charm, humor, and emotional depth without cluttering the narrative. The romance is a light, endearing dash of sweetness—kisses and budding connection rather than anything intense—pairing perfectly with the cozy vibe. Themes of healing from betrayal, found (or rediscovered) family, and the joy of restoration resonate strongly.

Chapter One

There were a lot of trees.

Calisa stood by the mailbox with her backpack and her suitcase and told herself very firmly that this was exactly what she needed.

Ahead of her was a forest, hemming in a one-lane road. Pine trees clustered together, the expanse of evergreens only broken by the occasional white-barked tree that stood out like a candle against the dark green. Overhead, the sky was a matte white, clouds blotting out the sun, which matched her mood—cloudy with a chance of rain.

“This is going to be an amazing summer,” she said, as if saying the words out loud would act as some kind of spell to make them come true.

She just hadn’t pictured what it would feel like to actually be here, by herself, in the middle of a truly excessive number of trees, away from everyone she knew and everything familiar. She’d been too focused on not being there.

A few weeks ago, she’d never have considered coming to Vermont by herself for two entire months, but after her world fell apart, she’d pounced on the invitation. She’d wanted to spend her summer anywhere but Brooklyn—anywhere but where Ethan, the boy who’d yanked her heart out of her chest and then stomped on it with the enthusiasm of a four-year-old in tap shoes, was going to be. It was essential self-care.

In retrospect, Calisa supposed she should have had the Uber driver take her all the way to her great-aunt’s doorstep instead of just the mailbox, but after the hours on the train and then in the car, she’d wanted to walk.

Also, the driver wouldn’t stop talking about fly-fishing. So, here she was.

It will be fine. She could tell from the clouds it wasn’t going to rain until later. And if it did, she’d packed an umbrella, though she wasn’t sure exactly where.

Everything is going to be fine.

Shouldering her backpack, Calisa hauled her suitcase down the road. On either side, the trees loomed over her. It smelled like pine and wet earth and not at all like the mix of hot gyro meat, bus fumes, coffee, and overripe trash that she associated with the street outside her family’s apartment in Park Slope. Above, birds cawed to one another with sharp, biting cries that made her feel like an intruder. Listening, she thought she heard one softer trill, a cascading chirp that was more friendly. Squirrels leaped from branch to branch, causing the forest to rustle. She wondered if Vermont had wolves. Or bears. Probably not. Or maybe yes? This wasn’t the city or even suburbia. Bears weren’t impossible. On the plus side, being attacked by a bear would make a unique party story. Or an excellent college application essay. She hadn’t started writing hers yet. On the minus side, it would not be great to be mauled.

Close beside her, the trees rustled again, and Calisa jumped. She spotted a squirrel racing up the trunk of a pine tree. Just a squirrel. Not a bear. Only my overactive imagination.

In Google Maps, it hadn’t looked that far from the main road to the bed-and-breakfast. She pulled out her phone. No signal. She shoved it back into her pocket and kept walking. Ahead, the sky was darkening as gray clouds seeped into the white.

The road twisted, and in front of her, on the left side, was a wooden sign, half devoured by ivy, with letters gouged into it that read:

THE FARAWAY INN

She exhaled and smiled.

“See,” she said to the trees. “Almost there.” She’d thought it was a melodramatic name—Vermont wasn’t that far from Brooklyn—but now that she was here in a random, possibly bear—infested forest, she decided it fit. She felt extremely far away from everything, which was exactly what she wanted.

Cheered, Calisa walked faster—and it began to rain.

At first it was just a few drops, one on her cheek, one on her head, and a few spattering on the road around her, and then it increased to a drizzle. She shivered as she walked, wishing she had worn something warmer than her favorite Brooklyn Beans T-shirt (teal with a picture of a coffee cup and the words “Brew can do it!”) and a pair of jean shorts. Mom-Kate had insisted she pack a jacket, even though it was summer, but it was shoved deep somewhere, probably with the umbrella. She didn’t want to stop to dig either of them out and risk drenching everything else in her suitcase in the process. Better to just keep walking.

A few minutes and many raindrops later, the road rose up a hill and then, as it crested, widened to reveal a hollow between slopes thick with pine trees. Behind it was a panorama of the mountains, crowned in gray clouds.

And in the center of the hollow was her great-aunt’s inn.

“Huh,” she said out loud.

Calisa hadn’t been here in years, not since she was five or six, and it did not match her memory. She thought she’d remembered a storybook inn, framed in roses and lilacs, with a burbling brook next to or behind it. Had she imagined all of that? She’d been young enough that it was one of those fuzzy kinds of memories that felt jumbled. But she’d still been expecting cute.

This . . .

It was not cute.

Well, she supposed it could have been charming once, but if so, it had been many, many years ago. Blinking through the droplets on her eyelashes, Calisa looked at the run-down inn and wondered what had happened. Auntie Zee’s B&B was gray, drab, and . . . the kindest description she could think of was “vintage distressed.” It reminded her of a squashed wedding cake. Three stories tall, it had faded and peeling paint that could have been white with ivory trim at one time but was now gray with dirtier gray. The roof was tilted, lopsided, and the shutters hung crooked on either side of the windows. One window on the second floor was boarded up with plywood. And the wraparound porch was so overrun with vines that half of it was buried beneath greenery.

It was all tremendously overgrown. The flower gardens, which Mom-Kate and Mom-Elise had gushed about while Calisa was packing—“Daffodils and lilacs and roses and lilies everywhere!” they’d said—were a mess. Okay, that was putting it mildly. Brambles and ivy from the forest sprawled across the flower beds as if they were trying to devour them. She couldn’t even see the supposed burbling brook, if there still was one.

It looked as if the forest was on the verge of swallowing the inn whole.

To be fair, her moms had said Auntie Zee was having trouble keeping up the place. It was, in fact, the reason that Mom-Kate had the idea to send Calisa here. She could help Auntie Zee and recover from her heartbreak at the same time. “Two birds with one stone,” Mom-Kate had chirped cheerfully. But Calisa didn’t think her mother had any idea how run-down it really was. If it wasn’t for a few lights inside, she’d have thought it was abandoned.

Calisa stood, staring into the hollow at the shabby bed-and-breakfast while rain slithered down her shirt and seeped into her sneakers. Her socks were already soaked, and her hair dripped on her shoulders. It wasn’t the arrival moment she’d pictured.

At least Auntie Zee will be happy I’m here. There was clearly a lot of work to do. She wasn’t afraid of hard work. Just afraid of being pathetic. Far better to be the unpaid, overworked help than the heartbroken girl everyone felt sorry for. She’d cheerfully be Cinderella so long as it meant she didn’t have to dance with any kind of prince.

Her original plan for the summer hadn’t involved any of this. Before Ethan upended everything, she’d had it all nicely mapped out: she’d secured a job at a vintage boutique called Buttons and Bell-Bottoms, which would have been fantastic. She’d work there for a few hours every afternoon, primarily playing on her phone and trying on the most random outfits she could assemble. After work, she’d meet up with her friends. She, Maddy, and Crystal had set themselves a challenge to visit every single coffee shop in Brooklyn before the end of August. Every evening, she was going to meet Ethan at the bodega where he’d be working, downstairs from her apartment. They’d have dinner (sometimes with his family, sometimes with hers, sometimes just the two of them), watch movies, and cuddle, or go out and drop in on one of Ethan’s friends’ parties. It would have been a very, very different summer than this.

Now . . . even if she spent the entire summer on nonstop yardwork and housework and whatever else until she had blisters and calluses on both hands, it was still a better option than having to see Ethan every day when she walked past the bodega and feeling as if she were being ripped to shreds from the inside out all over again.

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#Review - The Crimson Throne by Sara Raasch & Beth Revis #YA #Historical #Fantasy

2026-04-10T00:00:00.001-04:00

Series: Spy and Guardian
Format: 368 pages, Hardcover

Release Date: October 7, 2025
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Source: Publisher
Genre: Young Adult, Historical, Fantasy

Outlander meets Holly Black in this enemies-to-lovers romantasy set in the dazzling and dangerous Scottish court where a fae guardian of the realm falls in love with a charming Elizabethan spy who could also be the key to her world’s undoing. From the New York Times bestselling authors of the Witch and Hunter duology, Sara Raasch and Beth Revis, comes an incredible historical romantasy duology.

Nineteen-year-old Samson Calthorpe's father is a court favorite—but that alone won’t take him far without money and so many people depending on him. So when the opportunity arises to become a royal spy, he has to take it, using every bit of the skills and resolve he’s picked up on the streets of London to prove his worth in Queen Elizabeth’s court.

Eighteen-year-old Alyth Graham has kept her eyes on Queen Mary's husband, Lord Darnley, for years—her eyes and her magic. She may be a member of the Scottish court, but she’s no lady. A bastard child of a fae prince and a human mother, Alyth is among the most powerful protectors in Scotland: guardians sworn to support the barrier keeping the Red Caps, a bloodthirtsy clan of fairies, away from the Fae Land portals.

As Alyth and Samson circle each other in the volatile and glamorous Scottish court, both seek to uncover threats to their own countries. They have only one unifying link: their shared hatred and suspicion of Lord Darnley. Using secret codes, hidden messages, and a little bit of magic, Alyth and Samson unravel a plot centuries in the making. Lord Darnley is only a pawn, and in this game, the queen takes all.

The Crimson Throne is the first installment in co-authors Sarah Raasch and Beth Revis' Spy and Guardian series. Eighteen-year-old Alyth Graham and Nineteen-year-old Samson Calthorpe are the main characters in this book, with appearances from Mary, Queen of Scotland, and Elizabeth, Queen of England. The story takes place mostly in Scotland. This novel has the appeal of romantic fantasy, a lush historical setting that is reminiscent of Outlander, and the evergreen topic of fairies. These authors previously came together to write Night of the Witch.

The story unfolds against the volatile backdrop of 16th-century Scotland and England, amid the rivalry between Mary, Queen of Scots, and Queen Elizabeth I. Samson Calthorpe, a street-smart Londoner burdened by a mysterious curse that isolates him from loved ones, seizes an opportunity to serve as a royal spy for Elizabeth. His mission: infiltrate the Scottish court, uncover plots (including potential assassination threats against Elizabeth), and perhaps break his curse in the process.
On the other side stands Alyth Graham, a powerful fae guardian and bastard daughter of a fae prince and a human mother. Sworn to protect Mary Queen of Scots from both human and supernatural threats—including her own husband, Lord Darnley—Alyth maintains a magical barrier against bloodthirsty Red Caps and other fae dangers threatening the realm. When Samson and Alyth cross paths in the glittering yet treacherous Scottish court, mutual distrust sparks an enemies-to-lovers romance amid political scheming, magical threats, and questions of loyalty, duty, and destiny.
The narrative weaves real historical tensions (the power struggle between the two queens, court favorites, and figures like Lord Darnley) with fae elements, portals, guardians, and folklore-inspired magic rooted in Scottish mythology. The intrigue and political scheming shine brightly. Court machinations, betrayals, and layered plots keep the pace engaging, with a solid mix of action, mystery, and emotional stakes. The fae magic adds whimsy and tension without overwhelming the historical foundation—many readers note it feels like a refreshing, liberally interpreted take on Mary vs. Elizabeth, enhanced by strong world-building and folklore details.
The romance develops naturally from enemies to something more, fueled by distrust, shared dangers, and personal vulnerabilities. Character growth, particularly around duty vs. desire and the confrontation of insecurities, lands well. The pain, anger, and overconfidence of young adulthood feel authentically portrayed. If you enjoy historical fantasy with romantic tension, political scheming, and folklore-inspired magic—especially anything Scottish or Tudor-era—this is worth picking up. It may not reinvent the wheel, but it executes its premise with charm and enough heart to leave readers eager for the sequel, which will be the finale of the series since this is a duology.

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#Review - Devious Prey by Scott Reintgen #YA #FANTASY

2026-04-08T00:00:00.001-04:00

Series: Standalone
Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

Release Date: March 31, 2026
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Source: Publisher
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

A young woman must survive the deadly mythical creature she smuggled aboard an airship after a crash landing on a deserted island frees it, setting it on a hunt for the survivors in this thrilling fantasy adventure from New York Times bestselling author Scott Reintgen.

When an airship’s windmaster dies mid-flight, the crew and its passengers are swept out to sea by a violent storm. They crash on a desolate island, but they’re not alone. A dragoness had been stashed in the hold. After escaping a damaged cage, it begins preying on the surviving travelers in the hopes of remaining free.

The stranded group’s best chance of making it home alive is the young woman who smuggled the dragoness on board in the first place—and the mysterious teen boy who was led onto the ship in chains before takeoff. Both have secrets that could help them survive on the island…but those same secrets could deliver a death sentence if they ever make it home.

Scott Reintgen's Devious Prey is a mashup of fantasy and thriller aimed at a Young Adult audience. There are two key players: Pearl Trask and Marken Burke. Pearl, along with her aunt, is a smuggler, while Marken is being sent to face judgment for a crime that will be explained deeper towards the end of the story. The story begins aboard an airship before transitioning to a deadly, magical-wilderness survival story on a mysterious, deserted island, bringing the fantasy genre we know and love to a fresh setting reminiscent of thrillers like Lost and Yellowjackets.

Pearl Trask, a resourceful young smuggler, boards the airship Grand Gesture with her aunt, carrying highly illegal and dangerous cargo: a caged dragoness. Their plan goes sideways when armed soldiers join the voyage, escorting a powerful teen wizard named Marken Burke—known as the “Butcher of West Lily”—who is being transported in chains for trial on mass murder charges. Mid-flight, disaster strikes: the windmaster dies, a violent storm takes over, and the ship crashes on a mysterious, uncharted (and possibly mobile) desert island.
Survivors from the crew, passengers, soldiers, and prisoners must band together amid dwindling supplies and rising threats. But the real danger emerges when the dragoness escapes her damaged enchanted crate and begins hunting the stranded group, using her unique ability to assume the properties of substances she touches. Pearl and the chained wizard become unlikely keys to survival as secrets unravel, old alliances fracture, power struggles erupt, and the line between hunter and prey blurs.

Pearl is a capable, intelligent protagonist with raw backstory that draws readers in, while Marken and other survivors bring complex motivations—trauma, secrets, and shifting alliances keep everyone guessing. The story mixes Lord of the Flies-style social breakdown with Predator-esque monster tension, all set against Reintgen’s inventive magic system in the world of Ten Tides. Devious Prey delivers fast pacing, high tension, and a scene-stealing dragoness.

The magic system feels fresh and integral—layered, controllable as a resource, and tied to the dragon’s shapeshifting abilities. The question later becomes who is more dangerous? Pearl, Marken, or the Dragon? If you enjoy stories like The Hunger Games meets Jurassic Park (with dragons), or appreciate Reintgen’s signature blend of survival, magic, and flawed heroes, this story is definitely for you.

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#Review - A Deadly Inheritance by Kelley Armstrong #YA #Thriller #Suspense

2026-04-06T00:00:00.003-04:00

Series: Standalone
Format: 424 pages, Paperback

Release Date: March 24, 2026
Publisher: Tundra Books
Source: Publisher
Genre: Young Adult, Thriller, Suspense

After discovering she's an heiress to a billion-dollar corporation, seventeen-year-old Liliana finds herself at a new boarding school where she must navigate secret societies and a deadly competition. Not to mention two handsome boys.

The Reappearance of Rachel Price meets The Inheritance Games series in this new YA thriller from bestselling author Kelley Armstrong.

In the wake of her mother's death, Liliana Chamberlain's estranged (and very wealthy) grandparents swoop in. Or their lawyer does. Her grandparents aren't ready to meet her, but they want her to have the life her mother walked away from, starting with Westdale Academy, the elite boarding school her mother attended. It should be a Cinderella dream come true, but Lili has serious misgivings. Yet she doesn't have a choice, being under eighteen and dead broke.

Westdale Academy is a school of secrets as well as intriguing classmates, including Hollywood golden boy Theo Dubois and the mysterious Maddox Moreno. As she gets to know them all, Lili realizes there's more to the school than elite-level networking. Something deadly.

For the new girl at school, investigating the deaths of past students — including Maddox's own sister — is a very dangerous game. Do those deaths have something to do with why her mother fled Westdale at the cost of her inheritance?

When a fun night out turns bloody, Theo is the prime suspect, and Liliana must race against time to connect the past with the present and discover the truth behind her inheritance.

Kelley Armstrong's A Deadly Inheritance centers on a discovery after Lilliana Green's mother dies: a boarding school for the extremely rich, secret societies, dark academia, and a twisted "why bother" choosing a complicated romance among 3 key characters: Lili, Theo, and Maddox. Seventeen-year-old Liliana (Lili) Green is barely scraping by after her mother's sudden death. She's been living alone in their apartment, dodging authorities, and trying to finish high school until she turns 18, when she can attend college.

Then a lawyer named Cecilia Robbins appears, revealing that Lili is the heiress to a massive family fortune from her estranged billionaire grandparents, Chamberlain. (She also went to school with Lili's mom and knew her father). They aren't ready to meet her personally but want her to claim the life her mother rejected—starting with enrollment at Westdale Academy, the elite boarding school her mother once attended. Lili is thrust into a world of privilege, where wealth, status, and hidden power structures rule.

At the academy, she encounters secret societies, intense social dynamics, mysterious deaths, and a "deadly competition" tied to her newfound inheritance. She must navigate suspicion from peers, unravel family secrets linking past and present, and figure out who she can trust—especially amid two intriguing love interests and rising danger that puts her own life at risk. The story mixes Cinderella-like upheaval with high-stakes mystery, grief processing, and teen found-family vibes.

The dark academia atmosphere is moody and immersive, with elite boarding-school tensions, secret societies, and an undercurrent of menace that keeps pages turning. Armstrong lost me a bit with the "why choose" poly relationship storyline. That's not typically a trope I read, and certainly not one I was expecting in a YA novel, and likely won't read it again. Another failure for me was the numerous plot holes, a rushed ending, and a main mystery that didn't quite deliver the punch the author thought she'd created.

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#Review - Daughter of Crows by Mark Lawrence #Fantasy #Epic

2026-04-01T12:00:00.001-04:00

Series: The Academy of Kindness # 1
Format: 416 pages, Hardcover

Release Date: March 24, 2026
Publisher: ACE
Source: Publisher
Genre: Epic Fantasy

The survivor of a brutal academy must exhume her own past in the first book in a new series from the international bestselling author of the Library Trilogy and the Broken Empire series.

The Academy of Kindness exists to create agents of retribution, cast in the image of the Furies—known as the kindly ones—against whom even the gods hesitate to stand. Each year a hundred girls are sold to the Academy. Ten years later only three will emerge.

The Academy’s halls run with blood. The few that survive its decade-long nightmare have been forged on the sands of the Wound Garden. They have learned ancient secrets amid the necrotic fumes of the Bone Garden. They leave its gates as avatars of vengeance, bound to uphold the oldest of laws.

Only the most desperate would sell their child to the Kindnesses. But Rue … she sold herself. And now, a lifetime later, a long and bloody lifetime later, just as she has discovered peace, war has been brought to an old woman’s doorstep. That was a mistake.

Daughter of Crows is the first installment in author Mark Lawrence's The Academy of Kindness, an epic fantasy featuring a strong heroine who explores the maiden/mother/crone mythos. After fifteen years away from pure, unfiltered darkness, Daughter of Crows delivers exactly what fans have been craving: blood-soaked halls, necromantic horrors, and a protagonist who refuses to fade quietly into old age. This is not another Library Trilogy-style puzzle box; it is raw, visceral, and unflinching—Lawrence’s darkest book to date.

The main protagonist is Molly Plight, but she goes by several other names in this book: Mollandra, Rue, and Eldest. The Academy of Kindness does not raise saints. It forges Furies. Each year, 100 girls are sold at its gates. Ten years later, only three walk out—avatars of vengeance known as the Kindnesses, bound to the oldest laws of retribution. They train in the blood-drenched Wound Garden and learn forbidden secrets amid the necrotic fumes of the Bone Garden. Mercy is not on the curriculum.

Rue sold herself to the Academy after escaping a family that was breeding monsters. She survived. She became one of the three. Decades later, an elderly woman, finally carving out a fragile peace in a remote village, believes her killing days are behind her. Then, mercenaries bring war to her doorstep and slaughter everyone she has allowed herself to care for. Lawrence braids three timelines and multiple POVs (including Bek and Einsa's) with surgical precision.

The present-day revenge plot collides with extended flashbacks to Rue’s brutal decade inside the Academy, while a third, even darker thread emerges later to tie everything together. Early chapters can feel disorienting as the threads shift and the world’s mythology is drip-fed, but once the pieces lock into place, the momentum is relentless. The past illuminates the present so perfectly that every choice Rue makes in her twilight years carries the full weight of her scarred history.

In a genre crowded with twenty-something chosen ones, Rue is a revelation. Gray-haired, aching in every joint, yet still lethally competent, she is sharp-tongued, reflective, and terrifyingly pragmatic. Watching an older woman navigate physical frailty while wielding ancient necromancy and decades of tactical cunning is genuinely refreshing. Aging here is portrayed as both a curse and a gift—wisdom earned in blood, resilience forged in loss.

The girls inside the Academy form a raw, trauma-bonded sisterhood that feels painfully real. Even the most monstrous characters make sense; the world broke them first. No one is spared the cost of survival. The Academy itself is a masterclass in dark academia done right—Gothic, oppressive, and dripping with mythological resonance. The Furies (the Kindly Ones) loom over everything; their ancient laws demand retribution that even gods fear to interrupt. Necromancy is grotesque and costly, described in stomach-turning yet beautiful prose.

Violence is never glorified for its own sake; it is always heavy with consequence. Later in the story, it seems as though the Kindly Ones have been eradicated by a group known as the Cruelties, who know Molly very well. Several key questions are addressed in this story. Can you ever truly escape the person the world made you? What does vengeance cost when you are no longer young or whole? How do love and friendship survive inside a machine built to produce monsters? This is a fantastic start to a new series. I have been a fan of the author for years and will continue reading this series even with an emotionally shattering cliffhanger ending.

1

Molly Plight

The calm before this particular storm had lasted ten years, much of which Molly Plight had spent knitting. Trouble had arrived in the shape of a man of no great height, road-dirty and weather-beaten. Save for the cruel curve of the knife at his hip and the dull glint of mail beneath his fleece, there would have been nothing to mark him. But when he paused in the inn's doorway and smiled that smile, Molly knew that the peace she'd thought would claim her final days was over. She knew what a predator's hunger looked like.

"That bull the Millers have won't last another season." Jayne Clay, the tiny old woman on Molly's left, was given to predicting the death of prized livestock. That topic and regaling anyone who so much as paused in her vicinity with the doings of her two dozen towheaded grandchildren constituted the majority of her conversation.

Molly's needles and ball of yarn lay on the table before her, abandoned in favour of a pipe and a drink. The village children said the pipe smelled like a burning midden heap, perhaps not unfairly, but good weed was hard to find so far from anywhere. The small, thick glass in her hand held ulik, a treacle-dark liquor the locals brewed from turnips. She watched the mercenary cross to the bar. "Maybe."

"Maybe?" Doubt was a slap in the face where Jayne's predictions were concerned. Her ability to number the days of anything with hooves was legendary. "It's a certainty, girl!"

Molly sipped her ulik and made a face. Pipe smoke had numbed her tongue to the stuff's foulness, but she could still taste it. On her other side the third of their trio, Ambeth, hugged her ample belly and cackled at Molly being called a girl. Jayne and Ambeth might have a decade and more on Molly, but in no world that they knew of was anyone north of sixty summers a girl.

Cackled. Molly sipped again, winced again, and considered laughter. Age had blunted much of her sharpness, but in turn it had put a harsh edge on her voice and turned laughs into cackles. Still, if that was the worst the years had done to her she would consider herself blessed.

"Another round, girls?" Ambeth patted her coin pouch. She'd sold all the cheeses she'd brought into Stones Corner on Davy's cart, even the blue that stank worse than Vale pipe-weed, and for once could back her generous instincts with funds.

A "no" opened Molly's mouth but she bit down on it and shaped a "yes." One for the road. One to numb the aches before they walked the four miles back to Pye.

The tides that had left her stranded in the Vale a decade back had given no hint that her driftwood life had found its resting place. For the first few years everything had felt temporary-her pack ready by the door for a departure that never came. Instead, the slow and simple existence she'd picked up in the village of Pye had worked a strange magic on her. The steel spring that she had begun coiling in her chest at an age when she should have been chasing butterflies, or at least dreaming grand and empty dreams as she scratched a living from the soil, had started to unwind. The anger that she had for so many years bound ever more tightly at her core had somehow begun to seep away. The dark dreams, the watchful ways, the cynical poison that soured her days, all of it had started to leave her, worn away by passing seasons. Worn away by something as trivial as the community of peasants with no more learning among the lot of them than could be found in the head of any first-year acolyte of Kindness.

Ambeth struggled out of her seat and went to get the drinks, complaining of stiff legs. A mercenary wouldn't raise many eyebrows in the cities of the west, but out in the sticks where an oddly coloured pig could be the village's main subject of debate for several weeks, the man was drawing attention. Ambeth eyed him up and down as she approached, wrinkling her nose at the unfamiliar stink of him.

Molly stood, muttering something about the privy. It had been a long time since she'd been called on to do what had once been second nature to her. She had put all that aside, buried it both literally and figuratively. It had stayed buried so long that she had started to believe that that part of her life was over. She'd started to think that this was what her death might be, the slow setting aside of the things that had once defined her. A shedding of armour, one layer at a time. Until at last, she might go to her grave shriven of her burdens-stained by guilt but no longer defined by it.

She cursed as a second, larger man banged in through the street door, this one with a sword on his belt and a blackened iron breastplate. They had to be here for her. Nothing else made any sense. There wasn't anything a mercenary could carry away from the market of Stones Corner that would compensate the long ride to get to it.

2

Rue

Age would have taken her if they'd just had the sense to leave well enough alone. Some problems are like that-if you ignore them long enough, they go away. Most problems, actually.

The crow hops from one foot to the other on the haft of a broken spear. The feast before it is reflected in the black beads of its eyes. An open grave in which bodies lie in their scores, layered carelessly, sprawled face down as if they might have fallen here rather than been tossed in from the edge of the cold slot in the ground.

The crow cocks its head, choosing. The mottled patchwork shows little exposed flesh: muddy homespun, bloody shawls, grey hair here, darker locks there. No warriors these, just peasants. Hard lives and easy kills.

Cawww? The crow looks up to where a figure looms at the grave's edge, dark against the sky's pain as the last of the sun's light bleeds away. Here stands a man of war, tall in the sharp angles of his armour, unbowed by the rain-laced wind that tugs at his cloak.

"Fly away, storm crow. There's nothing for you here."

The crow doesn't challenge the lie. But its gaze flickers to the dead.

"Greater gods than you have run before me." A low thunder edges the voice of this man who is more than a man. "Their temples lie in ruin. Their statues are cast down. Their priests are crucified. Their faithful call my name."

The crow caws but keeps its place on the broken spear that is anchored in the back of a child.

The man draws his sword, pale steel that looks like a cold flame in the last light of the day.

"Do you threaten me with that?" The crow is gone, and in its place a woman stands in the grave, her bare feet on the uneven ground of stiff limbs and narrow backs. "I have no temples, no statues, no priests, no faithful." Despite her newfound height the woman's head is still below the grave's edge.

"Play no games with me." The warrior levels his blade at her.

"Games?" She smiles up at him, her face indistinct, flickering, perhaps from that of one corpse to the next as she picks her way among them. "Are you going to jump down and poke at me with your little sword? I might enjoy that, Sunder."

Sunder's teeth show beneath his helm's guard. "I know your names too. Do not think I don't. Saraswati, Thalia, Woman of the Spiders, Morrigan, many others. You cannot hide from me. This is my empire. There is no space for you here, no souls to steal. Fly away."

The woman's face hardens, ages, wrinkles spreading, eyes shading to pale, holding a cold and empty light. "Knowing my names is not knowing me. You have nothing I want, little boy. It's not in my nature to take . . . only to test. You wouldn't want to go untested, would you? Older gods than I would be displeased by that."

He throws the sword like a spear, swift and true. But the woman is gone, and the returned crow has fluttered skywards, snatched away by the wind. The man remains a few moments longer, sniffing at the air, scanning the blasted heath, peering into the grave's gloom as the shadows thicken. He does not, however, climb in to retrieve his sword. He leaves between one heartbeat and the next, as if he were never here, as if there had been no man, no woman, just a crow already too full of carrion to dip its beak. And of course, the corpses.

Anight settled in, and later a grey dawn struggled over the horizon. But not until the first rays of the sun reached into the grave and found her outstretched fingers did the old woman draw in a sudden, unexpected breath and raise her face to the world. If any other within the corpse heap were still among the living, then the cold light burning in her eyes would have persuaded them to play dead a little longer.

Rue had been born screaming at the world with an anger that took sixty years to fade. Even then her new neighbours had known that though she might look like them, she carried something else within her. Hard as nails, they said. A mean streak. Something in the way she looks at you. Had they known how deep that difference ran, they would have quietly left their homes in the night and never come back. She had told them a name that was true, though it had been so long since she had used it that it had felt like a lie.

The crow that had been following her since the grave landed close by.

"Stop following me, bird." Rue wouldn't normally waste words on a crow, but she needed distraction from her pain. "If I was going to die, I'd have done it back there." Her head ached as if what had struck her had been an axe and the blade was still buried in the back of her skull. "Fuck off!"

"I can't." The bird's croak sounded like words to Rue's scrambled brains.

Rue stopped walking and finally reached back to examine the damage. Clearly the blow had fractured her thinking. "Whoresons!" The oath escaped her through clenched teeth, but questing fingers had found no obvious fracture, just the tar-like adhesion of old blood in matted hair.

She turned on unsteady feet to examine the crow, now watching her from a rock five yards back along her trail. She had not expected a reply. Even on a day when she'd hauled herself from an open grave, this was still the strangest thing to have happened.

"Don't test me, bird." She eyed the ground for a suitable stone, though the thought of bending to pick one up made her teeth grind against the anticipated pain. Every part of her hurt, and the sole advantage to the agony in her head was that it at least shut out the rest of her body's complaints-for the most part.

"Test you? That's not what I'm here to do."

The crow's croaking was at once a human voice and also just a bird's chatter. Rue took it as more confirmation that the blow that had put her down, deep enough to be taken for dead, had rearranged her mind. "Madness" was the word that suggested itself. With a groan, she bent and scooped up a stone from the side of the track.

"I can't stop following you!" Panic in the croaking now. The voice was somehow familiar.

More madness. Rue raised her arm to throw.

"She told me I had to!"

"She?" Rue knew better than to feed a delusion. But there had been a she. Somewhere in the depths from which Rue had hauled herself, a climb that began long before she could raise her head and contemplate escaping the grave, there had been a woman. A woman of uncertain age. Of uncertain everything. But the climb had begun with her touch. With the pressure of her bony foot between Rue's shoulder blades, perhaps a great enough pressure to squeeze out a reluctant beat from a still heart.

"She. You know. Her!" The crow hopped nervously from foot to foot, eyeing the stone in Rue's hand.

Rue did not know, but another thought possessed her. "You sound like Senna Weaver."

The bird said nothing.

"I don't like Senna Weaver."

The bird shifted its feet.

"The only good thing about getting attacked was seeing that old cunt take an arrow in the-"

The crow launched itself at Rue in an explosion of feathers. She caught it around the neck, its beak two inches from her eye.

"I'm slow, but not that slow." Rue snarled the words while tightening her grip on the fragile neck.

"Wait! Don't!" Everyone croaks when they're choking, but a crow double-croaks.

Rue squeezed a touch harder, then with an oath threw the bird away. It landed poorly and stared up at her, eyes black beads of malice.

"Killing you would be a waste of a good joke. Stay a crow." She turned her back. "I hope you like worms, Senna."

"Why didn't you kill me when I was a person?" the crow cawed after her. "She said you'd killed more people than the cholera."

"I'm not a killer," Rue muttered.

The path before her wound around a rise where thorn bushes and stunted trees huddled together, toughing out the wind. On the far side, sheltered by the ridge, the village waited for her. Her small house, her narrow bed, the peace that had become her normal far faster than she had ever expected it to. "I'm not a killer."

"Everyone said you were. Everyone said back in the day they called you-"

"The only person who said that was you, Senna Weaver. Stirring up trouble for me from the day I arrived. Starting rumours. You took against me-" Rue clamped her jaw shut to keep back the loose thoughts spilling from her rattled skull. She might not want to be a killer, but to say that she wasn't didn't make it so. She had to be again the thing she had once been, the one who wore this name. The Rue who succeeded in part because of skill, in part because of venom, but truly because she was part of that rare fraternity of individuals grouped only by a single characteristic. Namely that they were, for some gods-touched reason, hard to kill. That where others would fall or freeze or be overtaken by the horror of violence and adversity, Rue's kind evened the odds by stabbing someone in the throat. Rue was the sort that somehow washed ashore when everyone else from captain to cabin boy drowned. The kind found limping from the bloodiest quarter of the battlefield. The kind that crawled from the grave spitting earth and ready for vengeance.

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#Review - A Rose of Blood and Binding by Claire Legrand #Fantasy #Romance

2026-03-30T12:00:00.001-04:00

Series: The Middlemist Trilogy # 3
Format: 512 pages, Hardcover

Release Date: February 24, 2026
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Source: Publisher
Genre: Fantasy, Romance

Third in the enchanting, sexy romantasy series from New York Times bestselling author Claire Legrand, perfect for readers of Sarah J. Maas and Jennifer Armentrout.

War is raging in Edyn. The battered Middlemist can barely hold itself together. Olden monsters terrorize the land. The gods are awakening from their ancient slumber, but if the vengeful Kilraith destroys them, all will be lost. And it’s up to the Ashbourne sisters—demigods, daughters of the goddess Kerezen—to stop him.

But the sisters are spread thin. Gemma and Talan travel the world in a desperate search for the gods. In the capital, Farrin and Ryder shelter countless refugees amid roiling unrest. And Mara Ashbourne, bound to the Middlemist and longing for a home she can never return to, is just trying to survive.

Every day is chaos as Mara battles invaders and fights to protect her fellow Roses. The presence of librarian Gareth Fontaine doesn’t help. Charming, brilliant, far too confident, and annoyingly reverent of the Roses—and Mara most of all—he’s a distraction Mara can’t avoid or afford. Especially since she can see the shadows of Mhorghast brimming underneath his dazzling smile. Shadows of violence, suffering, and shame that she knows all too well. Shadows that terrify her more than any monster.

As Mara and Gareth search the Old Country for Kilraith’s final three curse-anchors—and for signs of the late queen Yvaine—a slow-burning passion born of sorrow and solace sparks between them, one that could finally bring Mara to the very home she longs for…or drive her toward the dark fate she secretly craves, and bring both worlds crashing down alongside her.

A Rose of Blood and Binding is the third and final installment in author Claire Legrand's The Middlemist Trilogy. Three sisters (Gemma, Farren, and Mara) in a noble magic family must fight to protect their home from invasion by the creatures of the Old Country—the realm of the gods and the birthplace of magic—before the weakening Middlemist, the boundary dividing the two worlds, disappears forever. This final installment focuses on the middle sister, Mara Ashbourne, a hardened soldier and Sentinel in the elite Order of the Rose.

Trained from childhood as a weapon, bound to the Middlemist through a magical connection that allows the Warden to summon the Roses into beast-like battle forms, Mara has spent twelve years separated from her family, serving as a steadfast defender amid rising chaos. As war ravages Edyn, olden monsters terrorize the countryside, refugees flood the capital, and ancient gods awaken, the vengeful god Kilraith threatens to destroy them all and unravel the world.

Mara is thrust into a high-stakes quest alongside the scholarly, charming librarian Gareth Fontaine to locate and destroy Kilraith’s remaining curse-anchors. Meanwhile, her sisters Gemma and Talan hunt for the gods elsewhere, and Farrin and Ryder manage unrest in the capital—bringing the family arcs together in a sweeping finale. Legrand’s world remains one of the trilogy’s greatest strengths: the Middlemist feels palpably alive yet decaying, a battered, magical landscape infused with menace, beauty, and melancholy.

Descriptions of monsters, awakened gods, blood-soaked battles, and the eerie Old Country are vivid and immersive. The political unrest, refugee crises, and divine threats escalate naturally from the prior books (A Crown of Ivy and Glass and A Song of Ash and Moonlight), creating a cohesive sense of impending doom that pays off with satisfying twists. Mara stands out as a deeply flawed, compelling protagonist.

Tough and capable on the battlefield, she grapples with profound depression, a crushing sense of displacement (having been sent away in place of her sister Gemma), suicidal ideation, and the psychological toll of her binding to the Order. Her internal struggles feel raw and authentic, adding significant emotional weight—readers sensitive to heavy mental health themes, graphic violence, and suicidal content should approach with care. Gareth Fontaine serves as the perfect foil: a brilliant, witty, glasses-wearing librarian with rakish charm and “bookish Finnick Odair” energy.

Assigned to assist Mara, he’s reverent of the Roses (especially her), annoyingly confident, and provides sharp banter that sparks a classic slow-burn, jock/nerd romance with “he falls first” vibes. Their chemistry builds through shared danger, quiet vulnerability, and steamy tension, blending tenderness, angst, passion, and solace without overshadowing the larger plot. The supporting cast, including reunions with the other Ashbourne sisters and their partners, adds richness.

The trilogy’s emphasis on sisterly bonds, flawed yet relatable characters, and realistic growth shines through, though some readers note that Mara’s arc can feel particularly heavy and that the ensemble moments occasionally take a back seat to her personal turmoil. The narrative mixes quest-driven adventure—hunting cursed objects through dangerous territories—with large-scale battles and political intrigue. It’s darker and more intense than the previous entries, leaning heavily into despair before offering hope and catharsis. My only gripe was the chapters filled with heavy sex scenes, which I had no desire to read about. I am still coping with loss, depression, and blame 2 weeks after losing my cat to a sudden illness.

Otherwise, this book was a fitting end to the trilogy.

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#Review - The Ruins Beneath Us by Sasha E. Sloan #YA #Fantasy #Romance

2026-03-27T00:00:00.001-04:00

Series: The Ruins Beneath Us # 1
Format: 368 pages, Hardcover
Release Date: March 3, 2026
Publisher: Disney Hyperion
Source: Publisher
Genre: YA, Fantasy, Romance

She saved the prince. Now she must survive his world.

Lyria and her mother have been on the run from the human kingdom of Verdinae for as long as she can remember. She’s an elf born with magic—a double offence in a kingdom determined to eradicate both. Under her mother’s watchful protection, Lyria learns the rules that keep her alive: stay inside, stay hidden, stay safe, and above all stay calm, lest her magic flair out of control.

But when she finds a human boy being attacked by a deadly monster in the forest, Lyria risks everything by using magic to save him. She doesn’t expect his broken body to survive, and she definitely doesn’t expect him to be the crown prince.

Offered a position at the palace as the royal apothecary, Lyria seizes the chance to step into the light and prove to her mother she can control her unwieldly magic. But Verdinae is not the paradise it at first seems. The nobles are ruthless, the secrets are deadly, and Cygnus—the brooding royal healer—seems determined to expose Lyria’s every flaw. As she navigates a world of glittering gowns, deadly secrets, and stolen kisses, Lyria must keep her identity hidden. . . even from the prince who’s falling for her.

But beneath the palace lies a darkness far more dangerous than any secret. And when Lyria and Cygnus uncover a hidden world that could change everything, she must decide who to trust and how much she’s willing to risk for a love that was never meant to be.

The Ruins Beneath Us is the first installment in author Sasha E. Sloan's The Ruins Beneath Us duology. Lyria of Ironwood is an eighteen-year-old elf born with innate magic in a human kingdom (Verdinae) that has long sought to eradicate both elves and magic users following a brutal war that displaced her people. She and her protective mother live in seclusion on the outskirts of the Ironwood forest, bound by strict rules: stay hidden, stay calm (to control her volatile magic), and avoid any risk of discovery, which would mean certain death.

Restless and yearning for more, Lyria breaks protocol when she hears a cry for help and uses her healing magic to save a boy attacked by a deadly monster (sometimes described as a daemon). Unbeknownst to her, the boy is Crown Prince Finn. Grateful and impressed, Finn recruits her as the royal apothecary/healer to assist with a mysterious plague threatening the kingdom. Thrust into the opulent but treacherous human court of Crown City, Lyria must navigate glittering gowns, political dangers, stolen kisses, and her growing feelings while concealing her elven identity and magical abilities.

At the palace, she encounters the brooding, suspicious Head Healer Cygnus, who constantly questions her skills and seems determined to uncover any flaws. As Lyria and Cygnus delve deeper into their work, they uncover sinister secrets and a dark, ruined world hidden beneath the palace itself. Trust becomes scarce, alliances shift, and Lyria faces impossible choices about who to believe—and what part she might play in a larger conflict.

Lyria is a relatable, strong-yet-vulnerable protagonist—emotional, determined, and flawed in ways that feel authentic for a sheltered teen suddenly in the spotlight. Supporting characters, including the contrasting male leads, add depth. The story mixes classic tropes (hidden identity, "she saved the prince and now lives in his dangerous world") with fresh elements like healing magic tied to emotion and control, monstrous threats in the forest, and revelations about the kingdom's bloody history with elves.

This is a true slow-burning romantasy with a love triangle that sparks genuine chemistry. Prince Finn offers charm, warmth, stolen moments, and secrets, while the jaded Cygnus brings icy suspicion, magnetic intensity, and clarity to Lyria. This book does end on a cliffhanger, so be prepared for some truly stunning surprises.

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#Review - Songbird of the Sorrows by Braidee Otto #Fantasy #Romance

2026-03-26T12:00:00.001-04:00

Series: Myths of the Empyrieos
Format: 400 pages, Hardcover

Release Date: February 3, 2026
Publisher: The Dial Press
Source: Publisher
Genre: Fantasy, Romance

In a magical world of gods and mythical races, an outcast princess turned spy infiltrates a rival kingdom—uncovering secrets that force her to choose between obedience and defiance—in the first book of a propulsive romantic fantasy series for fans of Danielle L. Jensen’s The Bridge Kingdom series.

Ask no questions. Obey your orders. Respect your masters. But most of all, love no one.

Spy. Thief. Princess. Songbird.

Banished from the Palace of Sorrows as a child, Princess Aella was taken in by the Aviary, a secret intelligence network embedded throughout the Empyrieos that trains orphans as professional spies. Now twenty-three years old, she has finally earned her place as a Songbird on the most elite team of assassins, led by none other than her former flame, Raven. Everything about him calls to her—he’s brave, loyal, and lethal—but their relationship is also the greatest threat to her standing as a Songbird.

Before Aella can untangle her feelings, their team is sent on a dangerous mission to the eastern kingdom, a land that ever since the horrific God War has been the enemy of her homeland. Aella’s role is crucial yet troublesome: she must assume her former title of Princess of the Sorrows to compete in a series of bridal trials. But when the trials turn deadly and the mission is threatened, Aella must decide whether to follow orders or defy them.

Braidee Otto's Myths of the Empyrieos is the first novel in the Myths of the Empyrieos series, following Aella Sotiria through an epic journey of self-discovery, true love, redemption, and ultimately a great war that promises to upend the lives of everyone in the realm. The story blends spy intrigue, court politics, forbidden romance, and Greek mythology-inspired world-building, centered on identity, loyalty, and moral choice. Princess Aella was cast out from the Palace of Sorrows as a child, her royal lineage shattered and hidden.

Raised in the Aviary—an orphanage that fronts a ruthless spy and assassin network embedded across the Empyrieos—she trains as a covert operative. At 23, she earns her place as a “Songbird” on the elite Alpha Flight team, led by her former flame, Raven: brave, loyal, and lethal. The rules are clear: ask no questions, obey orders, respect your masters, and above all, love no one. The mission thrusts Aella back into her abandoned identity.

She must infiltrate the rival kingdom of Eretria by competing in the prince’s bridal trials as Princess of the Sorrows, gathering intelligence while surviving deadly court games and a larger operation. Old sparks reignite with Raven amid forced proximity, but as secrets unravel—including political schemes, a perilous heist, and threats that could spark wider war—Aella faces a wrenching choice between duty and defiance.

Aella (Starling/Songbird) stands out as a feisty, resilient, and complex protagonist. She’s capable in spy mode—wielding femininity, wit, gowns, or daggers as needed—and her internal journey of reclaiming identity while grappling with PTSD, anxiety, and conflicting loyalties feels raw and compelling. Raven, her ex and team leader, embodies the brooding, competent love interest archetype—lethal yet loyal. Chemistry exists in the forbidden tension, but he often feels underdeveloped: minimal backstory, no POV chapters, and a job-first vibe that leaves some readers disconnected or skeptical.

Side characters, including strong female friendships (e.g., with Nyssa), add heart and balance, though the large cast and limited depth can make attachments uneven. The book delivers classic romantasy tropes (secret princess, spy mission, bridal competition, second-chance/forbidden romance) with darker edges: moral grayness, betrayal, emotional and physical hardship, and high-stakes kingdom politics. The shocking cliffhanger sets up larger wars and revelations, making the trilogy feel epic.

Chapter 1

I was born dead.

Before the gods saw fit to grant me life. Before my mother surrendered her soul to save mine.

Perhaps it was my first dance with death that made me so reckless. Maybe it choreographed my perception of life itself. Propelling me toward choices others—in their sanity—would avoid.

But even I have to admit, this was a terrible idea. It may be the worst idea I’ve ever conjured up.

My arms tremble from the strain of the aether trying to force my body back toward solid ground, and my fingers ache as I dig them deeper into the crevices between the stones and mortar. A trickle of sweat trails down my spine, pooling at the base of my back, another tickling its way down my heated forehead.

I ignore it all, straining as I pull myself higher.

One hand over the other.

One steadying breath after the last.

I am strong enough for this.

The wind caresses my body as I cling to the side of the tower. Not a threat to make me fall, but a promise to catch me if I do. The sensation is reassuring, but as the toe of my sandal slips from my newest foothold, my heart still jumps to my throat.

I draw in a deep breath, tightening my grip on the wall. With every ounce of determination I possess, I bring my body closer, my foot frantically seeking another dent in the surface. The rush of my blood thunders through my ears with each drawn-out moment, until my sandal notches into place. Cautiously, I lean into it, testing the crack with my weight to be sure it will hold. When it does, I breathe a sigh of relief, leaning my forehead against the sun-warmed stone.

It’s not the height that scares me. It’s not even the risk of falling. It’s the fact that I’m running out of time.

Do not be seen.

That was the order.

Scaling one of the tallest towers in the Sorrows may not be the most effective strategy—unless you know its secrets as well as I do.

Every day as the sun sets and the afternoon light hits this same wall, its white-painted bricks light up like a beacon. If you try looking at it too hard—or too long—your eyes water, and your vision will blur. It’s almost impossible to watch, and even more unlikely to spot a lone figure clinging to its side. The white linen clothing I wear only adds to my camouflage.

But neither of those things will prove to be helpful if this takes too long. The sun will soon set, and with it, my opportunity.

With that sobering thought, I turn my gaze up toward the seventh-floor window a short distance above me. The arched shutters are thrown open, inviting the evening breeze inside. I fight the victorious smile attempting to break free and assess the cracks that stand out like blackened scars against stone, mapping the rest of my upward journey.

And then I move.

It takes a few moments to reach the window ledge, and the white glow of the tower fades with each fervent beat of my heart. Still, I pause, closing my eyes and listening for any sounds within.

Beautiful silence.

Exhaling, I clutch the ledge with one hand, then the other. My stomach flutters as my feet come away from the wall, and I hoist myself up to get a visual.

The soft glow of the sun shining over my shoulder bathes the room, causing the sparse furniture within to mask the corners in darkness. Three men in the center cast the longest shadows, their focus on the door in front of them as they wait in silence.

I recognize the man in the middle. With his close-cropped hair, lean form standing tall, and arms clasped behind his back, Master Bittern looks like a soldier standing at attention. I’m unfamiliar with the other two. But the white robes they wear tell me it’s because they spend most of their time hiding away in the archives.

They have laid out an assortment of bags and satchels in front of them, with the contents spilling across the polished surface of a heavy cypress desk. A quick count of the satchels confirms I’m not the last one to arrive.

Thank Notos.

Arms trembling, I haul myself up, biting my lip to suppress a grunt of exertion as it tries to push past my throat. With a quick swipe of my sleeve, I wipe the sweat from my face and settle into position on the windowsill, one leg bent while the other dangles over the edge as I lean my back against the stone wall.

A perfect picture of nonchalance.

It’s not until I untie the bag from my belt, making the items within clink together, that the three men whirl around. I refrain from rolling my eyes at the astonished stares of the two in white robes, keeping them trained on the authority in the room instead.

“Nice of you to join us, Fledgling.” The words rasp from his throat, sending a familiar shiver up my spine, and my eyes dip toward the jagged seam of pale skin around his neck.

Master Bittern is a legend within the order. The story of his near capture in the North is the most popular tale whispered about in the safety of the shadows. Rumors say he faced off against a group of ten Arkhadian soldiers on his own, and during the skirmish, he received his vicious neck wound. While it had failed to take his life, the struggle had damaged his vocal cords beyond repair, and when he finally made it back to the Sorrows, he took up the mantle of training new recruits instead.

The spymaster strolls forward, leaning past me to gaze out the window. His brows rise as he looks down—so subtly I question whether I witnessed it—but his face remains otherwise impassive.

“One might think you have a death wish, Aella.” He says my name so softly, I doubt the others hear it. Still, my eyes flick nervously toward them.

Only a select few individuals within the Aviary know my true name. So few, in fact, I can count the number of people trusted with the truth on one hand.

Once I’m satisfied the other men haven’t overheard, I reply, “It’s not the first time I’ve heard it, Master.”

I doubt it will be the last.

Master Bittern hums under his breath, and I don’t have a chance to consider the dimming glow in my chest before he swipes the pouch from my hand, upending the contents into his waiting palm.

Out falls a gold-tipped black quill, a heavy golden chain with a circular pendant, and a sharp throwing knife. Master Bittern selects the knife first, holding it up for everyone in the room to see. Somewhere behind me, a quill scratches against parchment, but I keep my eyes fixed on the man in front of me.

“One of Master Hawk’s throwing blades,” I say, tilting my head toward the serrated strokes carved into the steel handle.

M. H.

The weapons master values his blades above all else. I’d heard of at least three others who attempted to steal one during their final trials over the past few years. My success today was more thanks to Master Hawk being distracted by preparations for an assignment than a testament to my skill.

Master Bittern inclines his head, passing the knife to the white-robed man hovering behind him. When he turns back, he selects the pendant, letting the thick chain dangle from his fingertips.

The circular amulet twirls, catching the rays of sunlight streaming through the window and casting them around the room. It spins back toward me, revealing the four-pointed star sitting above a downward-pointing triangle etched into its surface.

“The sýmvolo of the High Priest of Notos,” I offer, a hint of smugness staining my words.

I can’t help it. The man rarely takes it off, and it had taken weeks of observation to mark the times he did so. Yet another week to have a perfect replica of the amulet forged to replace it with.

Master Bittern raises a brow at me. The movement on his usually stoic face tells me he also knows the precise moments the High Priest removes his sýmvolo. I wince as images of the temple’s bathhouse crash through my mind—steam curling from the water failing to conceal miles of aging flesh.

My wince morphs into a shudder.

As he did with the throwing knife, the spymaster passes the pendant and chain to his offsider without a word, and then only one object remains.

The quill.

Master Bittern’s expression doesn’t change. His eyes, however, pierce mine with an intensity that makes my heart pound, and my palms grow slick with sweat. But at twenty-three, I’ve learned how to hold my nerve. To keep my hands steady, my voice even, my face unreadable—no matter how hard my heart beats.

“A quill,” I start, steeling myself before I go on, “from the Eagle’s office.”

Parchment tears, the sound stark against the now-thick silence of the room. On the edge of my vision, the other man’s eyes widen, followed by an owlish blink. In the distant recesses of my mind, I note how apt the small motion is.

The gold-tipped black quill gleams in Master Bittern’s hand as he turns it over, inspecting it under the glimmer of light. His face is stoic, but his dark eyes reveal flickers of something deeper—approval, perhaps, or intrigue.

“You made it elegant,” he says at last, his voice rough but contemplative. “Most would have grabbed the nearest artifact and scrambled back like frightened mice. But this”—he holds up the quill again, offering it for all to see—“this is a whisper, subtle and deliberate. It speaks volumes without shouting.”

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#Review - Riftborn: A Post Apocalyptic Urban Fantasy by Shannon Mayer #Fantasy #Romance

2026-03-25T12:00:00.001-04:00

Series: Of Shadows and Blades # 1
Format: Kindle, 556 pages
Release Date: February 27, 2026
Publisher: Hijinks Ink Publishing
Source: Kindle Unlimited
Genre: Fantasy / Romance

I do not know my name.

I do not know how I ended up in a world of broken continents and broken souls.

What I do know is how to survive.
How to fight.
How to kill monsters with a precision that borders on magic.

My memories are gone, stripped down to ash, but my body remembers things my mind cannot. Training. Instinct. Violence refined into something lethal and elegant. And beneath it all, a relentless drive to uncover the truth of who I was.

One man stands in my way.

Veyyr.

His magic is unlike anything I’ve ever encountered, and the pull between us is undeniable. He knows me. Knows my past. Knows the name I no longer remember.

And he refuses to tell me.

Bound to his world and his secrets, I follow him into the wilds of a fractured land. A journey I have no reason to take. No stakes in.

Except this.

The deeper we go, the clearer it becomes that survival is no longer enough. The path forward runs through me. Through what I’ve forgotten and must remember.

And if I don’t reclaim the truth of who I am…
This broken world may claim us both.

Riftborn is the first installment in author Shannon Mayer's Of Shadows and Blades series. This story is a high-octane, memory-wiped thrill ride that blends gritty post-apocalyptic survival with classic urban fantasy flair, laced with romance and found family. The story opens with our protagonist, Mallory, clawing her way out of a massive rift in the earth—literally born from the cataclysm that shattered the world.

She has no memories of her past, no idea who she is, but her body knows exactly what to do: fight, survive, and dispatch monsters with lethal precision that feels almost magical. A mysterious ID tag and a ring on her finger are her only clues. The world itself is a fractured, broken place—continents torn apart, cities in ruins, rifts spewing horrors, and pockets of desperate humanity clinging to survival amid supernatural threats.

Mayer does an excellent job painting a vivid, lived-in dystopia that feels both familiar (echoes of ruined urban landscapes) and wildly fantastical, with magic bleeding through the cracks alongside the danger. The post-apocalyptic setting never feels like window dressing; it drives the tension, forces constant movement, and shapes every interaction. As Mallory pieces together fragments of her identity, she crosses paths with Veyyr, a frustratingly secretive man who clearly knows far more about her than he’s letting on.

Their dynamic—equal parts antagonism, reluctant alliance, and simmering tension—fuels much of the emotional core. The “he knows her, she doesn’t know him” trope is handled with restraint and builds genuine intrigue rather than cheap frustration. The plot moves at a breakneck pace: survival treks through dangerous wilds, monster-slaying set pieces, uneasy alliances, and escalating revelations about the rifts and Mallory’s possible role in the larger catastrophe.

It’s classic Shannon Mayer—action-forward with snappy dialogue, clever problem-solving, and a heroine who refuses to stay down. Mallory, who is apparently the daughter off another badass Tracker named Rylee, is an absolute standout. Amnesiac heroines can sometimes feel passive, but here her instincts, sass, compassion, and raw determination make her instantly likable and empowering.

She’s capable without being infallible, funny in the face of horror, and her gradual memory recovery is doled out in satisfying, tension-building drips rather than overwhelming info-dumps. Riftborn is pure escapist fun for fans of urban fantasy, post-apocalyptic adventures, kickass heroines, and slow-burn romance. If you love Shannon Mayer’s Rylee Adamson or similar series with strong women, monster-hunting, found family, and high-stakes world-saving, this is an easy must-read.

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#Review - Half City by Kate Golden #Fantasy #Romance

2026-03-23T12:00:00.001-04:00

Series: Harker Academy # 1
Format: 496 pages, Paperback

Release Date: February 17, 2026
Publisher: Ace
Source: Publisher
Genre: Fantasy / Romance

Welcome to Harker Academy for Deviant Defense. Keep your daggers sharp, and your wits even sharper.

Viv Abbot is an average twenty-one-year-old girl. She lives in an expensive city where the rent is too high, works long hours at a thankless job, and is dating a guy she doesn’t even like in the hopes of winning her prickly mother’s approval.

She just also happens to be a demon hunter.

Ever since her father's murder, she's been forced to hunt deviants alone, meaning everyone, including her family, sees her as an outsider . . . Until the day she crosses paths with a dangerously alluring demon, Reid Graveheart. The reformed deviant tells her of a school for people just like her: Harker Academy for Deviant Defense. If she enrolls, she'll learn to hone her craft, work with other hunters, and never be alone again.

But Viv has a deadly secret. One that not even her new friends at Harker can know about. Not when the school might hold the answers to untangling the mystery surrounding Viv's father’s death. When strange occurrences begin to plague the students, Viv will have to figure out who she can trust, and fast. All while trying to ace her classes, not fall for a demon, and make it through her first year at Harker in one piece. How hard could that be?

Story Locale: Alternate fantasy city

Half City is the first installment in Kate Golden's Harker Academy series. The story follows Viv Abbot, a 21-year-old who seems ordinary on the surface—struggling with a dead-end job, high rent in the glittering but divided city of Astera (nicknamed "Half City" for the massive chasm that splits it and unleashes supernatural threats), and a complicated family dynamic. But Viv has a deadly secret: she's a demon hunter (or "deviant hunter"), driven by a rare, dangerous power that manifested early after witnessing her father's brutal murder years ago.

She's hunted alone ever since, keeping everyone at arm's length, including her own mother—until a chance encounter with Reid Graveheart, a reformed demon who's equal parts dangerous and alluring, changes everything. He invites her to Harker Academy for Deviant Defense, a prestigious training ground for hunters like her. What starts as curiosity turns into a full enrollment when Viv realizes the academy might hold clues to her father's death. Astera is a vibrant, modern city with an underbelly of deviants (demons, vampires, werewolves, and more), and Harker Academy feels like a mix of elite college and monster-hunting boot camp.

The lore surrounding Lymantrians, Aeons, The Brood, and the cosmic chasm is intriguing and layered, gradually revealed without overwhelming the reader. The action sequences are visceral and well-choreographed, with plenty of high-stakes fights that keep the pages turning. Viv is messy, fiercely independent, sarcastic, and grappling with her own monstrous urges. Her growth from lone wolf to someone learning to trust (friends, teammates, and maybe even a certain demon) feels earned. The supporting cast shines too: loyal roommates, rival students, and family members who add emotional depth.

And then there's the romance. The slow-burning tension between Viv and Reid is deliciously forbidden, but doesn't infest the rest of the story with page after page of sex scenes. The book moves at a breakneck pace, balancing academy life, mystery-solving, and escalating threats (strange attacks on students, hints of betrayal tied to Viv's past). It builds to an intense climax with some genuine twists, though it ends on a cliffhanger, which will likely push readers to pick up book two (Cursed City, already on the horizon).

Chapter 1

Once, I crushed a beetle with my bare foot.

Nora was faster than me back then. I was all limbs and joints, with little coordination between them. We'd been playing gymnasts on the sidewalk-cartwheels resulting in skinned knees and tumbles leading to bits of asphalt embedded in our palms-when the sun-drenched day bled into a dusk that turned our neighborhood downright menacing. Or at least, that's how it looked to six-year-old me. I peered up from one of my more impressive somersaults and realized Nora was already at the stairs of our apartment building.

I ran after my big sister as if the shadows yawning off the power lines were long fingers that could seize me where I stood. I didn't even see the bug.

When the shell crunched beneath my heel-innards spreading across my foot like jam on toast-I expected revulsion. Guilt. Horror.

But none came.

I bent down to inspect the gore, my fear of creatures that slunk out with the fading daylight forgotten. I couldn't tear my eyes away from the insect's shattered exoskeleton. The still-twitching limbs. My blood thrummed with morbid allure. A predator discovering prey and, with it, a sick, insistent desire.

A desire I've fought against every single day since.

Staring down at the once-blue, now-gray gum stuck to the heel of my loafer, I try to shake the memory. I don't have time to dissect my psyche this evening. I'm late.

"Thank you so much for calling-"

I nearly jam the phone into my ear canal. "Yes? Hello?"

"Your call is very important to us. Someone from the district attorney's office will be-"

The noise I release is less human woman, more exasperated hyena. A balding man in a crumpled shirt recoils from me, and I deserve it. The Astera subway at rush hour is terrible by anyone's standards. The Astera subway at rush hour in the summer is a stinking, sweat-drenched hellscape from which few emerge with their sanity. A hellscape made worse only by all the lunatics who call this city home, and tonight, to Crumpled-Shirt Man, I am said lunatic.

But there's no time to mutter apologies. I secure the phone against my shoulder and shove past him down the stairs into the bowels of the multifloored subway. A sardine in a sweaty, sticky, tin can of conference calls, nursing scrubs, and unsupervised teenagers. My bags, water bottle, wallet, and railway card are about as secure in my hurried grasp as a handful of eels. When I maneuver through a turnstile, a dog's yapping echoes from deeper within the subway, rising above the din.

Someone behind me, equally rushed, knocks my precious phone from the crook of my shoulder and I spy the endless depths of a grate beneath my feet. A mere second before disaster, I catch the phone between my chin and collarbone. Phew. I listen to the irritating melody over the line to confirm that my spot in the queue hasn't been compromised.

What kind of mother is more likely to answer her work line than her cell? I'm all for boundaries, but if I hear one more automated woman tell me how valuable my time is, I'm going to implode. While I wait for my train, the Muzak blares in my ear and that dog yowls again.

Every time a train thunders past, the entire tunnel flickers. One fluorescent light high above is missing a bulb. My stomach growls, and I wonder if every suit on the crowded platform can hear it over the rumble of the subway cars. I search through my leather tote-a designer bag my from my mother, which I hate yet carry daily out of some misplaced guilt-and find the soft pretzel I grabbed on my way to work this morning.

This morning.

Shit. I haven't eaten today.

My mother once told me that forgetting to eat when stressed is a superpower. I'm about to cram as much of the stale, salty dough into my mouth as I can in an act of fierce rebellion against such an archaic, patriarchal notion when I finally catch sight of the dog that's been barking for the last ten minutes.

Against the tiled wall to my left, below graffiti depicting white antlers on Caspar Harlock's ad for his burgeoning news network, sits a yowling, dark-haired mutt, not too unlike my own. He's barking mostly at his owner, a kid with matted hair, leathery skin from too much sun, and clothes that I can smell from here.

The boy's sign reads: Hungry, Anything Helps.

Astera-the Half City, the country's epicenter of culture, business, and politics, located on the glittering edge of the eastern seaboard. We must have the largest population of billionaires in the world-our graffitied Caspar Harlock over there and my best friend Penny Pine's parents, to name a few-and yet a seriously shameful percentage of the city is living on the street. And who can you blame for a cycle that never breaks? Those in government? Say, perhaps, our tough-as-nails district attorney?

Whose office I am still on hold with?

Even though she birthed me?

It's moments like these in which I almost understand my mother's obsession with marrying me off to James Pine like some tragic Dickensian wretch. It's the same part of her that gifted me this bag on my first day of work so I wouldn't look quite so pedestrian. She loves me. She wants me to be taken care of in this dog-eat-dog city. And even though I can take care of myself in more ways than she could possibly fathom, I do wish I had the means to pull a wad of hundreds out of my bag for this kid and his dog.

Instead, I offer him my squashed, cold pretzel. His eyes light up as he takes it from me, immediately ripping off half for his floppy-eared companion. The dog eats hastily, fragments of wet pretzel crumbling on the ground, before he quiets, snuggling next to his owner in satiated gratitude. The young kid offers me a similar expression.

I don't even realize my heart is in my throat until my mom answers on the other line with a shrill "Yes, Viv, what is it?"

I falter for words.

"Viv? Do you need something? I'm about to step into a meeting."

"Hi, sorry." I pull myself together just as my train arrives. "Your team left a box of Dad's things outside my place this morning?"

A pungent whiff of some guy's noxious body spray fills my nose as the crowd coalesces around the open doors. I can barely hear my mother's exasperated sigh over the tumult.

"Yes." She sounds distracted. "I'm trying to declutter."

I nearly take a model's bony elbow to the chin as I find a seat. "You don't want . . ." I can't even find the right words. "Anything to remember-"

"My assistant saw a drug exchange on your block when she was leaving the apartment. How many times do I have to say I don't like you living so far past the Chasm?"

I mentally pound my head against a wall. I want to ask, Have you blocked out everything that happened before Dad died? You guys raised me around the corner from a brothel. The madam had to pick me up from school once. But I go with "Babylon is up-and-coming."

"Will you at least have James stay with you? He says you never invite him over."

It's not her fault-she doesn't know how laughable it is to assume my boyfriend can protect me better than I can protect myself. I fumble for a response that isn't No thank you, please.

"Or I could have a home security system installed?"

"You're kidding, right?" Her silence is like a whip. "Yeah, okay. If you must."

"So much graciousness on this phone call."

I bite back my attitude. "I'm sorry."

"Is Fiona having you work opening night?"

My mom has hounded me about this new exhibit on the Chasm for months. I work at the Windsor, Astera's largest and most well-funded museum, gallery, and research institute, and our newest collection opens in November. To my mom, whether or not I am one of the assistants chosen to help wealthy old women in pearls and tweed-wearing historians up the stairs on opening night is the full extent of my worth as a human. "I still don't know," I tell her. I don't add that I told her the same thing last week, and the week before.

"Well, you've certainly put in the time. I'm sure she will."

"One can only hope," I deadpan. When I hear her irritated sigh on the other line, guilt swims in. "Thank you, though. For the faith."

"Mm-hmm."

"Love you," I add.

But the line is already dead.

After my dad died when I was ten, my mom traded in her grief for justice. She'd been a city councilwoman in Lethe, the lower-middle-class neighborhood where my sister and I grew up, but his death prompted her to get a law degree, spend her weekends championing local anti-crime legislation, and dig into my father's murder until it was branded a cold case and thrown into some cheap suit's file cabinet.

Only two years later, she got a fancy government job and moved Nora and me across the city in the same station wagon we'd used as his hearse. I went to bed one night in the dingy yet lovable five-story walk-up I'd known all my life and woke less than a week later in a luxurious, chillingly empty house over the hill in the Hesperides, enrolled in Belaire School for Girls-and yes, it was as bad as it sounds.

I allow myself a brief gut-deep sigh at the memories before taking a seat and rummaging through my three overstuffed bags-gym bag, tote, purse- and running through the work wear-to-cocktail dress transition in my head.

My dress can be thrown on over my blouse. Or Nora's blouse, which I've stolen to look presentable. Then I'll shimmy the blouse down and off. No, wait-it could snag on the dagger strapped to my ribs. Britannia silver would eviscerate the blouse, and Nora would eviscerate me. Luckily, only I inherited the hunter gene from my father, otherwise that wouldn't be a joke. I'll unbutton the blouse first and pull it through my dress's neckline.

Pants always come off last, even after shoes, meaning there will be an unavoidable period of time in which I am barefoot on the Astera subway.

Vile, but alas, the things we do for love.

Thankfully, by the time I'm ready for my acrobat-level quick-change maneuver, the railcar's crowd has thinned out a bit. Probably because we're heading farther and farther south toward the Chasm. Nobody from up here goes down to Babylon, the neighborhood where Penny and I live. Especially not at this hour-assistants at the Windsor rarely leave before eight.

After graduating from Belaire, I didn't quite have the GPA to attend a decent college. My mother was beside herself, of course, but it's not like I could tell her I missed half my finals because a vampire was drinking his way through the city's strip clubs.

After my gap year became gap years, I'd wanted to apply to entry-level jobs at photography galleries. There's a smattering of cool ones in Babylon, but-to nobody's shock-my mom was not jazzed about that idea. I think she said something like I didn't spend every dollar I had on Belaire so you could look at other people's pictures for a living.

Luckily, Nora's wife, Fiona, stepped in a year ago and offered me a job as her assistant. She's the Windsor's head curator, which basically means she's a history buff who gets to travel the globe, say the word gala a lot, and wear high, clacky heels every day.

As the subway car moves over the Erebos Bridge across the Chasm, my bags begin to slide. Despite having a cocktail dress currently overhead, I save them from escaping with my outstretched foot, like it's a frog's tongue on an errant fly. For a rare moment in which my tampons and sweaty Pilates clothes don't spew onto everybody's shoes, I am awash in warm appreciation for my heightened hunter reflexes. Though I pray the second dagger strapped to my thigh didn't poke through my slacks. I can't afford another pair this month.

Eventually, the dress is on, loafers replaced by sensible heels, and there are no injured subway citizens to show for it. My eyes find my shoes, and I twist my ankle for a better look. In my head, my mom says, A stiletto wouldn't kill you. In-my-head-me replies to her, Actually, it might. Have you ever chased down a demon in a six-inch? Two sprained ankles have taught me that a platform heel is the only way to go.

I peer up at the remaining stops ticking away on the digital banner. Three more until Babylon. I check my hair using my phone camera and pull the long night-black strands into a low bun. Smooth my brows. Examine my teeth. The phone reads 8:51.

Dinner was at 8:00. I can probably be through the doors of Cobwebs by 9:07, which isn't too terrible for me. Maybe Penny won't even notice.

The smell of bacon pulls a growl from my stomach. A woman at the end of the railcar is munching a breakfast burrito with one hand as she holds on to a double stroller with the other. Her eyes are drooping closed as she chews.

A breakfast burrito at 8:00 p.m.-my kind of lady.

I reach into my bag and grab my half-frame camera to discreetly snap a shot of the mom and her burrito. There's exhaustion there but also the joy of a perfect bite when you need it most. It's incredibly human, and, as I often try to remind myself, so am I.

The train slows to a halt and a few more passengers file in and out. One stop left. Thank the lord.

"They're sleeping, so . . ." the mom says. When I peer back over, a man in a grease-stained jumpsuit is scooting closer to her, asking to see her kids. He's shifty-eyes darting here and there, scratching hastily at his arm. I hear the noise like his nails are inside my brain.

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

I try to tell myself he's just a poppy addict or a mugger from STC-South of the Chasm. But then shivers break out across my skin, and my heart sinks. I can almost hear kind, forgiving Penny ordering a red wine for me and saying to the waiter, "She'll be here any minute . . . She has a really demanding job." I wonder if they already sang her happy birthday.

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#Review - A Lie for a Lie by Ren DeStefano #Thriller #Suspense

2026-03-19T12:00:00.000-04:00

Series: Standalone
Format: 320 pages, Paperback

Release Date: March 10, 2026
Publisher: Berkley
Source: Publisher
Genre: Thriller, Suspense

A deadly game of cat and mouse unfolds when a housewife with a secret life takes on a tech billionaire with secrets darker than her own . . . from the author of How I'll Kill You.

Margaux leads a double life that would make most people dizzy. By day, she's a seemingly ordinary interior decorator with a picture-perfect marriage. By night, she works for a mysterious employer known only as Mr. X. Her specialty: infiltrating the lives of dangerous targets, gaining their trust, and ultimately exposing their crimes.

Her latest assignment: unraveling the reclusive life of Bertram Casimir, a billionaire tech CEO whose career is as mysterious as his past. His sister claims he stole her app to build his fortune. Not only that, his girlfriend may or may not have recently gone missing.

Bertram sees through Margaux’s carefully constructed facade, matching her move for move. As the lines between hunter and prey blur, Margaux finds herself unexpectedly drawn to Bertram. They share more than she'd like to admit—a dangerous intelligence, a taste for high-stakes manipulation. When the evidence begins to shift, threatening to destroy everything she knows, Margaux realizes this is far more than just another job.

Her hidden past—and her life—are now on the line. One lie remains, and it might just save her.

A Lie for a Lie by Ren DeStefano is a high-stakes story centered on deception, double lives, and moral ambiguity in a modern spy-thriller framework. The novel follows Margaux Blue, a woman living what appears to be an idyllic suburban existence but a past she's been hoping to change. She's an interior decorator, married, and mother to a young daughter. But this carefully curated facade hides her true identity—she's a skilled operative working for a shadowy figure known only as Mr. X.

Her assignments involve infiltrating the lives of dangerous individuals, earning their trust, and ultimately exposing (or eliminating) their crimes. When she's tasked with targeting a powerful tech billionaire whose secrets prove far darker and more personal than expected, the mission spirals into a tense game of cat and mouse that blurs the lines between hunter and hunted. As Margaux gets closer to her target, her own past catches up, forcing her to confront the cost of the lies she's told—to others and to herself.

The story starts with a slower burn as we settle into Margaux's dual worlds, but once the stakes rise, the pages practically turn themselves. The first-person narration pulls readers deep into Margaux's conflicted psyche—her calculated coolness, moments of vulnerability, and the constant tension of maintaining her cover. This intimate perspective makes the twists feel personal and unpredictable. DeStefano updates the formula with contemporary elements—tech surveillance, billionaire culture, and the psychological toll of living a compartmentalized life—without ever feeling gimmicky.

The cat-and-mouse dynamic is electric, packed with deception, unexpected alliances, and reversals that keep the momentum high. Character development is strong, particularly for Margaux. She's not a flawless action hero; her choices are messy, her loyalties are tested, and her internal struggle adds real emotional depth. The supporting cast, including her family, Elodie Blevins, and the target, is well-sketched and serves to heighten the stakes rather than just fill space.

If there's a minor critique, it's that the deliberate setup in the early chapters might test the patience of readers craving immediate action. But that slow build pays off richly in the second half, where the revelations come fast and furious. Some twists are audacious, though a couple hinge on convenient timing or withheld information. Lastly, I truly believe that DeStefano is not finished with Margaux or her family. Not when the villain of this story was not only cunning, but vindictive as well.

One

The courtroom is packed.

Today, the highly publicized six-month murder trial comes to an end. At seven this morning, the jury announced that they had reached their verdict. Now we gather to hear the fate of the defendant, Emma Graham.

"Mom," Collette whispers, "I can't be late for school. I have a math test today."

At eleven years old, my daughter is going on thirty.

"It's fine." I wrap my arm around her shoulders, giving her a comforting squeeze. "Not everything is learned in the classroom. This is educational."

Collette cranes her neck to see over the rows of people seated ahead of us. We didn't get here early enough to sit directly behind the attorneys, but with the popularity of this case, it's a miracle we got in at all. Through the window, I can see that the sidewalk outside the courtroom is also packed with people, all of whom are huddled over smartphones waiting for the next update.

Collette was interested in this case because it fascinated her that this crime went down long before even I was born, but also because the murderer could still be found guilty. I explained the statute of limitations to her-how some crimes, like petty theft or even assault, have an expiration date. But murder never does. Even if they find you when you're a hundred years old and on your last days, justice will come for you.

I stare at the back of Emma Graham's head. Her gray hair is cut short, and her skin is still tanned from her long days spent on sunny beaches. Back in 1985, when her husband went missing, she was youthful and radiant, only thirty-two. She wept on the news and pleaded for her husband to return to her, safe and sound. She begged the public to be on the lookout. She alluded weakly to poorly planned-out and vague mental health issues, claiming he'd "been depressed" and that she'd "always known" he "might do something."

This didn't stop her from cashing the insurance check when his van was later found submerged in a river, with him at the wheel. No attempts to escape had been made, and it was deemed an accident. He'd fallen asleep at the wheel and perhaps hit his head, rendering him unconscious on impact.

That was forty years ago. Since then, she's remarried three times-no children-and retired to an upscale condo in sunny Florida. When her husband's death was ruled accidental, the case disappeared from public discussion. And because there are so many tragedies to fill the evening news, the world eventually forgot about her.

The room falls silent when the jury files into the room. Collette eyes them curiously. The jurors aren't shown on the cameras, so this is the first time she's having a look at them.

My husband, Waylen, would be angry if he knew I've taken our daughter here. Yesterday, when he caught Collette watching the trial recap on YouTube, which contained salacious details about Emma's affairs during her first marriage, he took her iPad away. He said the topic is too grown up for her.

But whether or not he wants to admit it, Collette is smart. She knows that criminals exist and finds it reassuring that they can be punished for their crimes. Like me, she's interested in how a grave injustice can be corrected. How criminals who thought they'd gotten away with it can finally be punished.

"You're a good mother," Waylen told me recently, during one of our hushed little late-night arguments while Collette was sleeping across the hall. "A perfect one, really. But you're trying to make her too much like-"

"Like me?" I'd pressed.

"Like an adult," he'd amended, with irritating calm. "Shouldn't she be-I don't know-collecting stickers and coloring books?"

"She's not five, Waylen."

"She's not thirty-five, either." He'd had to fight to keep his voice low. He didn't say the rest of it-the part we've hashed out a thousand times. He wants our life to be more . . . normal. My obsession with spying, he doesn't understand. "What are you trying to prove?" he's asked. But I can never tell him. There's only one person who truly understands, and that's Mr. X, who agrees with me.

Now I sit in the courtroom with Collette, who is eleven-and admittedly I do forget she's not thirty-five sometimes.

The teachers at Collette's esteemed private school would be horrified to know that I'm exposing her to this case. But I wasn't much older than she is when I was in a courtroom as a defendant and stood trial for murder.

I already know the verdict will be guilty. The head juror is a petite college student named Mira Hart, and she's working for me. If there was any evidence of jury tampering that led to this conviction, the courts would have to throw the whole thing out. But that won't be an issue.

Emma Graham sits tall and straight. Maybe she's trying to maintain her pride, or maybe she still thinks she can get away with the crime she committed forty years ago. It happened before they had things like DNA testing, and small-town cops thought a man was more likely to take his own life than his loving wife was. This was back when the news media lined their pockets with sad stories of pigtailed girls who were stolen from their beds or snatched from their bicycles.

I found Emma's story while browsing a thread on Reddit. "What's a solved case that you think the cops got wrong?" Investigators never looked into Emma's motives. Just two months after her husband was found, she cut all communication with her extended family and ran off with a man she'd been having an affair with. These could have been the actions of a desperate widow looking to escape her grief. But the case still intrigued me.

Someone on the forum claimed to have a taped confession. He was an Uber driver, and he'd recently shuttled an intoxicated Emma home from a senior center bingo night. She told the Uber driver that he shouldn't get too cocky about his good looks, because one day he would also be washed up and ugly, like the man she'd murdered for a fifty-thousand-dollar insurance settlement.

Most people assumed the post was a hoax. No shortage of those on the internet. But I reached out and obtained a copy of his dashcam footage. I took on the case-no easy feat-and was able to piece the evidence together.

But I'm not a cop. I'm not even an investigator. I am part of an organization that handles things a bit differently.

Dear Emma, I began my letter to her. Although nothing can bring your loving husband back, today you are given the chance to redeem yourself. In your backyard, below the seashell where you keep the spare key, you'll find a cassette tape of the night you confessed to positioning your sedated husband behind the wheel of his van, putting it in drive, and watching him roll forward into the lake. Some details the police never released, to prove that I'm serious: You'd given him Benadryl in a late-night smoothie, and he threw up on impact. You had tried to tape a rock to the gas pedal, but it kept falling off, so you had to push it yourself. You tell people that your husband was planning to leave you and that's why you were having an affair. But after the truth cocktail my contact slipped into your drink at the bar, you confessed. You don't remember this, but I have the proof.

By signing your latest dearly departed husband's pension checks over to the safe home for battered women and children, you can save lives like the one you ended and make things right. You will not go to prison if you comply.

I'll contact you soon with instructions.

Sometimes, the criminals I contact know a gift when they see it. Not Emma. She was used to the accusations-all of which had been proven false-and she must have assumed this was yet another hoax. She didn’t shutter herself in the house or call an attorney like some have, but she did become increasingly paranoid. Looking over her shoulder when she sat at the seaside bar, jolting whenever the voices of strangers grew too close as she sunned herself in the sand.

Still, when the police finally showed up at her door, I imagine she was surprised.

Throughout the trial, Emma searched the faces of the jurors and sometimes turned to the people in the pews behind her, no doubt searching for her letter writer. No doubt wondering who was watching, who knew her darkest secret. But now that I'm here in person-rather than watching the recaps in my kitchen as I make dinner-she doesn't look for me. She's given up.

The judge, for her part, gives a passionate speech about the abhorrence of Emma's crime, and then she summons the head juror to read the verdict.

Mira Hart, twenty-one and with a melodic theater major's voice, reads from the paper in her hands. "To the charge of murder in the first degree, we the jury find the defendant guilty."

There are more charges, but that was the big one. Collette is perched on the edge of her seat, biting her lip.

When Mira finishes speaking, for a moment it's quiet enough to hear a pin drop. The judge has instructed all of us that we'd be removed from the courtroom if we caused a disturbance.

I wait until the room is mostly empty before I take Collette's hand and lead her outside. She's somber, but when we reach the last step of the courthouse, she leaps into a dancer's pirouette. "That was really cool, Mom," she says. "Thanks for bringing me. Now I can tell my friends I was sitting five feet away from a murderer. Her shoulders got all hunched up when they found her guilty."

"Maybe this should be our secret," I say, opening the door to the SUV for her. "Your father didn't want me to take you."

"Why not?" she asks. "It's not like she's going to kill me, too. They had her in handcuffs."

Collette has Waylen's gold hair and blue eyes. She has his prowess for art and science, and they both love to bake bougie French desserts.

But even though we don't match up on everything, Collette is more like me than she realizes. I knew it very early on. Waylen sees it too, and it scares the hell out of him.

"I don't want this life for her," he's whispered to me while we're lying in bed. He doesn't mean my day job as an interior decorator, or his salaried job editing manuscripts for a Big Five publisher. He means the thing we don't say. The life he gave up. The things I do when I disappear for hours at a time, and the reason Emma Graham will spend the rest of her miserable life in prison.

"She can do anything," he's told me. "Anything but that."

I arrive at the school twenty minutes late. As I turn into the driveway, I hand Collette the note that was tucked in the sun visor. “Give that to your teacher.”

She reads it-the only child on earth to question a permission note that allows her to be late to class. "But we weren't at the dentist," she says. "Isn't that lying?"

"No, it isn't," I say, glancing at her in the mirror. "No plaque buildup. The technician said you did a perfect job."

She hesitates, tucks the note into her pocket.

She hates lying, which as a parent is a trait I appreciate. But I'm working on teaching her the subtle art of playing her cards close to the vest and knowing when to keep a secret.

"Collette, all of that 'honesty is the best policy' stuff you learn about in kindergarten isn't always applicable."

She unbuckles her seat belt. "What's 'applicable'?"

"It means sometimes the rules are bullshit." She doesn't flinch at my language, even though I don't talk this way often. She knows that this morning is special, one of those rare times when we're on the same level. And she knows that I'm going to answer the questions she normally wouldn't ask me.

"Why does Daddy get so mad when I watch trials with you?" she asks.

"You can't be too hard on him," I say. "He still thinks you'll be little forever. That's why he keeps buying you unicorn Squishmallows on your birthday."

"I still like them," she says. "I mean, a little bit." It is true that Waylen wants to preserve her innocence, but that isn't all of it. Really, it's that he doesn't want her to be like me. He doesn't want her to grow up and fall in love with someone like who he used to be when we met.

Collette opens the door, but before she can set foot on the pavement, a woman comes bursting through the double doors of the school's entrance. She paces toward us like a mad bull in pink heels and perfectly dyed platinum hair.

"Who's that?" I ask. Cynthia Nyugen does morning drop-offs, but seeing as we're late, I was expecting the drop-off to be empty.

"Mrs. Blevins," Collette groans. "Finnegan's mom."

"Who's Finnegan? I don't recognize that name," I say.

"The Blevinses just moved here," Collette says. "She's the worst."

"Which one is the worst?" I ask. "Mrs. Blevins or her daughter?"

Before my daughter can answer, Mrs. Blevins is knocking on my passenger-side window and motioning for me to roll it down, as though she's a cop pulling me over for a bank heist.

As the glass comes down, I give her my brightest smile. The one that Waylen says makes me look like a Miss America contestant whose onstage talent is dismembering a corpse. "Good morning," I say, in my best Stepford wife tone.

"This is the drop-off for students who arrive on time," she says by way of greeting. Her perfume floods the car, flowery and potent, like Natalie Portman's fever dream. I suppress a cough. "For tardy students, you're supposed to pull into the commuter lot and walk her into the main office so that she's not marked absent for the day."

"Is that really necessary?" I ask. "She's got a note."

"It's for everyone's safety," she says. Up close, it's infuriating how beautiful she is. Her makeup perfectly blended and contoured, not a single clump in her mascara, perfectly manicured nails. She exudes newness. Someone who understands the power of a first impression.

I can feel Collette's eyes on me, pleading for me to make this easy on her.

I extend a hand to Mrs. Blevins, my smile relaxing into something less robotic. "Margaux," I tell her. "My daughter has spoken so highly of your Finnegan. I'm just sorry that you've caught me on an off day."

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#Review - A Ghastly Catastrophe by Deanna Raybourn #Historical #Mystery #Romance

2026-03-17T12:00:00.000-04:00

Series: Veronica Speedwell # 10
Format: 336 pages, Hardcover
Release Date: March 3, 2026
Publisher: Berkley
Source: Publisher
Genre: Historical / Mystery / Romance

Veronica and Stoker are practically dying for a new adventure, but when their wish is granted, they find themselves up against a secret society and a darkly seductive duo in this landmark historical mystery from beloved New York Times bestselling and Edgar® Award–nominated author Deanna Raybourn.

When the corpse of an entitled young man is found entirely drained of blood in a carriage next to Highgate Cemetery, Veronica’s interest is piqued. And then a second victim is found, his death made to look like a suicide—and Veronica and her intrepid beau Stoker know the hunt is on. The two men share one link: they were both members of a society so secretive that only a singular mention of it can be found anywhere.

Thirsty for more clues, Veronica and Stoker hear that a young Romany boy may know more about their first victim, and the only way to the boy is through an old acquaintance of Stoker’s, Lady Julia Brisbane. Lady Julia and her dashing husband, Nicholas, occasionally track down murderers and are only too happy to help. But as it becomes clear that the secret society is a dangerous sect looking to entice immortality seekers, Veronica and Stoker find themselves ensnared by a decidedly more sinister couple.

The professed leader of the society claims to be a creature of the night; his partner practices witchcraft and they both fancy themselves emissaries of the otherworldly. Just as Veronica and Stoker get closer to learning the true purpose of the society and unraveling this macabre mystery, another body turns up, and they quickly discover they’ve gone from being the hunters to the hunted. . . .

A Ghastly Catastrophe is the Tenth installment in author Deanna Raybourn's Veronica Speedwell series. This story takes place in Victorian England in 1890. The key players are Veronica Speedwell, a natural scientist specializing in butterflies, and Revelstoke Templeton-Van, a natural scientist and former medic in the military. The story kicks off with a bang when a young man’s corpse—entirely drained of blood—is discovered in a carriage near Highgate Cemetery, complete with suspicious fang marks on his neck.

Scotland Yard’s Inspector Mornaday of the Special Branch brings the case to Veronica and Stoker, and soon they’re tangled in a web involving a possible secret society, a second “suicide,” shady Romany connections, and a pair of gloriously theatrical fraudsters: the vampire-esque Lord Ruthven and the witchy Asphodel. Journalist J.J. also joins the investigation after finding herself in a precarious situation. Raybourn leans into the gothic vibes with nods to Dracula and classic vampire lore, but grounds everything in clever, rational twists that keep the supernatural elements fun rather than silly.

What makes this book (and the series) shine is the sparkling dynamic between Veronica and Stoker. Their banter is sharp, witty, and laced with genuine affection and chemistry that has only deepened over ten books. Veronica’s fearless, scientific mind clashes delightfully with Stoker’s more pragmatic (and occasionally exasperated) nature, and their arguments—especially about whether vampires could possibly be real—had me laughing out loud.

The supporting cast feels just as alive: Mornaday’s long-suffering presence, a welcome cameo from Lady Julia Brisbane (bridging Raybourn’s Lady Julia Grey series), and even the eccentric Rosemorran household add warmth and humor. The mystery itself is twisty and well-paced, blending historical detail, secret societies, and a touch of the macabre without ever losing its sense of playfulness.

Raybourn uses the vampire trope as both a red herring and a commentary, delivering a satisfying resolution that feels earned rather than gimmicky.

The Victorian London setting—Highgate Cemetery, Romany camps, glittering fraudulent séances—comes vividly to life, and the stakes rise nicely as Veronica and Stoker shift from hunters to hunted. If you enjoy clever historical mysteries with strong female leads, slow-burn romance, and just the right amount of gothic flair, this series is definitely for you.

Chapter 1

London, 1890

Do you want to do the deed or shall I?" I asked as we stared down at the carcass.

Stoker sighed. "I suppose I will." The lackadaisical air he adopted would have been cause enough for concern; the sigh was terrifying. Stoker had always been a man of extraordinary vigour, striding with purpose and energy through all of his endeavours, no matter how small.

But our lives had, in recent weeks, grown very small indeed. Despite a physically hectic and thoroughly enjoyable winter holiday together in the Isles of Scilly, Stoker and I had returned to a London bedevilled by bad weather and worse moods. After an autumn which had seen us crack our most extraordinary case yet, the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness had given way to choking fogs and a deep, creeping damp which settled into our very bones. Both of us had suffered through a series of lengthy colds, snuffling and sniffling until we were quite mad with it. We smelt of mustard plasters and liniments and other assorted unguents. The tip of my nose was, for the whole of March, the unbecoming shade of a ripe plum. Spring was slow in arriving; a series of late frosts blackened and withered the snowdrops, and the daffodils shivered in their pretty yellow caps. It was, in short, a dismal time, and if it had been only the weather and our various ailments to assail us, our spirits might not have fallen so low.

But I was conscious of a new and unwelcome feeling that spring. I had, for the first time since I had made Stoker's acquaintance, experienced ennui. My boredom lay not with him-never think it! He was as engaging and maddening a companion as ever, offering sustenance for both body and mind through a combination of vitality, intellect, and charm that was as heady as it was rare. No, our intimate friendship was as intimate and friendly as it had ever been.

Our regular work was likewise fulfilling. We had been engaged by the Earl of Rosemorran to catalogue his extensive collection with an eye to someday opening a museum. While Stoker and I were natural historians by trade-he a naval surgeon turned taxidermist and I a lepidopterist-we had been given charge of the entire collection with the result that all of our spare hours were spent in study of the various artefacts in our care. From coins to corals, stamps to suits of armour, the previous earls had collected it all, and it was the present earl's task to bring order to the hotchpotch of his forefathers. The collection was enormous and not particularly orderly, but most of the entries were exquisite, chosen with taste and purchased at great expense. (I do not include the present earl's acquisitions in this assessment. Whilst his ancestors applied standards of beauty and worth to their additions, the present earl simply buys what he likes. This accounts for the puppet theatre, the moth-eaten camel saddle we use as seating for guests, and an assortment of prosthetic limbs in questionable states of hygiene.)

The collection had come to be housed in an enormous freestanding ballroom on the earl's estate at Bishop's Folly in the heart of Marylebone. The ballroom-called the Belvedere-was only one of the various buildings that had been placed at our disposal. Stoker and I each had a folly for our private quarters, and an elegant glasshouse had been refurbished for my use as a vivarium where I might breed and study butterflies and their mothy kin. We had been given free rein over the collections, empowered to either deaccession or purchase as we saw fit, and we were beholden to no one for our time. We lived in extraordinary comfort, and we enjoyed interesting work as well as harmony in our own relationship-spiced with the occasional spirited debate when Stoker proved overly emotional. (I have long held that the male is the less logical of the species and have yet to see evidence to the contrary.)

What then ailed us that long and gloomy season, I hear you wonder, dear reader. With so many advantages, we ought to have been content-nay, we ought to have been as happy as angels.

And yet. We did not speak of it, but souls cannot be as linked as ours and have secrets. I intuited Stoker's restlessness as clearly as I felt the itch in my own blood, and the cause of it was the same as my own: we wanted a mystery. It had been nearly six months since our last investigation, and while we were certainly not professionals, we had fallen into the habit of murder-the sleuthing and not the committing, I hasten to add. And we had found it a difficult one to break. How could any mind trained to logic and observation, any person that thrilled to challenge, not find these deductive puzzles utterly intoxicating? They were as delicious to us as the rarest of wines, and we were, quite simply, suffering from the lack of a body.

I stared down at the corpse in front of me, knife in hand.

Stoker's lack of enthusiasm for the present job was not lost upon me. "Oh, let me," I said to Stoker as I bent to my task. Swiftly, the deed was done, and I held the bone out to him.

He curled his littlest finger around the bone and I did the same.

"On three," I instructed. I counted in Latin, and we pulled. There was a moment of hesitation, and then the bone snapped with the larger part resting in my hand.

"The wish is mine!" I crowed. I closed my eyes and made it quickly.

"What did you wish for?" Stoker asked as he helped himself to a drumstick.

"I cannot tell you or it will not come to pass," I reminded him.

Just then, George, the hallboy, entered brandishing a letter.

"Post, miss!" he called as he fought his way through the pack of dogs which we had somehow acquired in the course of our adventures. From Huxley the bulldog to Betony, the enormous Caucasian sheepdog, they represented every possible variation of the canine species. We had lazy dogs and dogs possessed of enough energy to pull a sled of Olympian proportions; we had affectionate dogs and dogs that would very probably stand by and watch us be devoured by Stoker's collection of dermestid beetles. The only thing they had in common was an abiding adoration of George, doubtless because he invariably smelt of interesting things. The boy had come from impoverished circumstances, and it was not until he had come into his lordship's employ that he had known food that was both wholesome and delivered at regular intervals. Still, the habits of the starveling are difficult to break, and George invariably tucked away some portion of each meal against any future hunger. A chicken wing, a bread roll, a sliver of good English Cheddar-his pockets were emptied each day either into his own stomach or that of one of his grateful siblings, but the delectable aromas remained for the dogs to sniff out.

By the time George had fought his way clear of the snufflings of each wet black nose, Stoker had finished carving the chicken and was portioning slices of juicy fowl onto our plates.

"Have you eaten, George?" he asked, poised to serve another portion.

"I have, sir," George said, although he eyed the roast potatoes with avarice in his gaze.

I did not blame him. The potatoes were golden and crisp and piping hot. I plucked one from the platter and offered it. It disappeared with a conjuror's skill into his pocket as he handed over the letter.

"From Mr. Mornaday, that detective fellow," George announced helpfully.

Stoker and I were both eager to instill in George the skills and accomplishments necessary to make something of himself. He was a Cockney child, born out of wedlock to a mother who had repeated the process of giving birth without benefit of a husband several times over. As the eldest, it fell to George even at his tender age to contribute to the household expenses. Lord Rosemorran had employed him as a hallboy whose duties included the running of errands, some of the less arduous of the heavy cleaning chores undertaken by the footmen, and whatever assorted tasks might be reliably handed off to a diligent child. In return, he was paid a modest wage and given bed and board with leave to visit his family often. So long as he attended church once a week and kept himself free of vice, he was assured of a position which might one day lead to his promotion to footman, provided he grew to at least six feet and had shapely calves. Otherwise, he would be turned over to the gardener for training in heavier labours.

Everyone seemed thoroughly pleased with the arrangement-everyone except George. He was an ambitious imp who was determined to rise from the ranks of servitude. By way of his lordship's generous gift of a library for the servants' hall, George had taught himself his letters, believing literacy would be the key to his future ambitions. He had wheedled basic numeracy out of the butler, and Stoker had undertaken to give him weekly lessons in the essential sciences, including geography and astronomy. Stoker was pleased with his progress, saying that he was very nearly ready for the fundamentals of chemistry, but I had my own thoughts upon the matter.

It had occurred to me that a slender and unprepossessing child would make an excellent observer, undetected and underestimated by everyone. A wiry lad, small for his age and agile, George was slippery as an eel when it came to finding his way through the teeming streets of London. There was not a cobbled alley or paved court he did not know; from knacker's yard to noble's garden, he had made a study of the capital, committing its secrets to memory. Each day upon his various errands, I set him a task to develop his powers of observation. I would tell him to find a man with a bowler hat and follow him for thirty minutes to see where he went and give me an account of it. Or he might count the number of butchers in a given street and tell me the price each charged for a Cumberland sausage. On days when the weather was too abominable to permit such excursions, I would give him an envelope or a bit of brown paper that had wrapped a parcel, and ask him for his conclusions about the senders.

"Veronica," Stoker had inquired after one memorable day when George had deduced the contours of a concealed Wardian case from the size of its packing crate, "is there a point to these exercises? These are the sorts of skills one would expect to be mastered by a criminal apprentice. Do you intend to set George upon a career as a pickpocket?"

"Certainly not," I had replied with some asperity. "His talents may be put to excellent use in the pursuit of justice-as have our own," I reminded him.

"How?" Stoker demanded.

"In the course of our investigations, we would often have profited enormously from another pair of eyes, youthful and sharp eyes to keep watch upon suspects and inform us of comings and goings. I am training George to be our assistant."

"Our assistant?" It is seldom that one actually witnesses someone tearing at one's hair, but Stoker threaded his hands through his tousled witch-black locks, tugging in frustration. "Veronica, we are natural scientists. Teach the boy to identify one of your bloody moths, or let me train him to the taxidermic arts, but for the love of all things holy and good, do not think to make a sort of detective of him. We are not the police."

"No, and that is a pity," I told him as I made a mental note to introduce George to the study of handwriting. "If we were the police, there would be far fewer criminals about."

Stoker tugged harder upon his hair, and I let the conversation drop solely out of concern for his follicles. Naturally, I carried on with my plan to instruct George in the detectival skills with the result that he-quite correctly-identified the hand of our sometime partner in the investigative arts, Mornaday of Special Branch.

"Well done, George," I told him. "I imagine you noticed the peculiarity of his 't's.'"

"That it smells of macassar oil," he said. "I should like some of that. It's how a gentleman ought to smell," he added with a reproachful look at Stoker.

"If you mean to shame Stoker on that score, you shall be a long time at it," I advised George absently. "He will always smell of leather, honey, and good whisky." As these were not unpleasant to me, the reader must not mistake my observation for criticism.

"And glue. And linseed oil," George murmured under his breath. He was not wrong. The tools of Stoker's trade were often to be detected clinging to his person, but I found the combination quite arresting-intoxicating, even.

I skimmed the missive, reading it over a second time as a slow smile spread across my face.

"What is it?" Stoker demanded.

"Mornaday says he will call upon us shortly. And this letter is proof that wishes on a chicken bone may come true," I told him as I pushed away from the table, dinner no longer of any consequence.

George slid smoothly into my chair in my stead, picking up my fork and helping himself to a wing and another roast potato. He eyed the broken wishbone as he crammed a forkful of potato into his mouth.

"Whahdyewhshformis?"

"Chew, George," I instructed as I made preparations to receive our visitor. "And if you are endeavouring to ask what it is that I wished for, I am only too happy to tell you. A body, George. I wished for a body."

Chapter

2

Horsefeathers," Stoker said succinctly as he handed the note back with a gesture of lofty disdain. "Mornaday says only that he will call. There is nothing whatsoever about a body. Your rampageous imagination has got the better of you. Again."

I gave him an indulgent smile. I could afford it. I was certain we were perched once more upon the precipice of adventure, and the resulting exhilaration made me generous with Stoker's impatience.

"I know you have never properly warmed to Mornaday," I began.

Stoker made a sound that was a cross between a snort and a heave of unwellness. Naturally I ignored this and went on.

I cleared my throat. "As I said, I know you have never properly warmed to Mornaday, but I think he is quite fond of you."

[NB: Stoker's reply was unsuitable for delicate readers, and I decline to repeat it here. -VS]

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#Review - The House Saphir by Marissa Meyer #YA #Fantasy

2026-03-13T12:00:00.001-04:00

Series: Standalone
Format: 432 pages, Hardcover
Release Date: November 4, 2025
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Source: Amazon
Genre: YA, Fantasy, Fairy Tales

The #1 New York Times-bestselling "queen of fairytale retellings" is back with a thrilling romantasy and murder mystery based on the legend of Bluebeard.

Mallory Fontaine is a fraud. Though she comes from a long line of witches, the only magic she possesses is the ability to see ghosts, which is rarely as useful as one would think. She and her sister have maintained the family business, eking out a paltry living by selling fraudulent spells to gullible buyers and conducting tours of the infamous mansion where the first of the Saphir murders took place.

Mallory is a self-proclaimed expert on Count Bastien Saphir - otherwise known as Monsieur Le Bleu - who brutally killed three of his wives more than a century ago. But she never expected to meet Bastien's great-grandson and heir to the Saphir estate. Armand is handsome, wealthy, and convinced that the Fontaine Sisters are as talented as they claim. The perfect mark. When he offers Mallory a large sum of money to rid his ancestral home of Le Bleu's ghost, she can’t resist. A paid vacation at Armand’s country manor? It’s practically a dream come true, never mind the ghosts of murdered wives and the monsters that are as common as household pests.

But when murder again comes to the House Saphir, Mallory finds herself at the center of the investigation—and she is almost certain the killer is mortal. If she has any hope of cashing in on the payment she was promised, she’ll have to solve the murder and banish the ghost, all while upholding the illusion of witchcraft.

But that all sounds relatively easy compared to her biggest challenge: learning to trust her heart. Especially when the person her heart wants the most might be a murderer himself.

The House Saphir by Marissa Meyer marks a welcome return for the acclaimed "Queen of Fairytale Retellings." Known for her Lunar Chronicles series and other imaginative spins on classic tales, Meyer takes on the dark French folktale of Bluebeard—reimagining it as a standalone YA romantasy murder mystery blending gothic atmosphere, supernatural elements, ghosts, witches, and a touch of steamy romance. The story centers on Mallory Fontaine, a young woman from a long line of witches who feels like a complete fraud.

Her only magical ability is seeing (and communicating with) ghosts like former Duchess Triphine Maeng, which she exploits by running sensational tours of a historic site tied to the infamous Count Bastien Saphir—aka Monsieur Le Bleu—who notoriously murdered three wives over a century ago, while one wife managed to escape. Mallory and Anais are sisters who come from a line of powerful witches but have no real powers themselves. They are con artists, total frauds whose schemes never end. They basically fake it until they make it!

When Armand Saphir, the handsome, wealthy great-grandson and current heir, shows up and hires Mallory and her sister Anais to exorcise lingering spirits from the family estate (the titular House Saphir), Mallory sees it as an easy payday and a chance to get closer to the real haunted mansion. But as new murders echo the past horrors, Mallory is thrust into a genuine investigation, navigating dark magic, monstrous creatures that have invaded the world after some veil between realms fell, family secrets, and her growing attraction to Armand—who may or may not be as innocent as he seems.

The gothic vibes shine through in descriptions of the sprawling, eerie House Saphir, complete with locked rooms, ghostly apparitions (some helpful, some vengeful), and a creeping sense of dread. The Bluebeard inspiration is handled cleverly—she preserves the core elements of forbidden chambers, suspicious husbands, and deadly marriages while subverting expectations in fresh ways. The addition of a post-veil world where monsters roam like pests and witches are real (but not always powerful) gives the retelling a unique fantasy flavor, feeling somewhat connected to the universe of her Gilded duology without requiring prior reading.

The romance between Mallory and Armand develops with solid chemistry—there's banter, tension, and that classic "I shouldn't trust him but I kind of want to" dynamic that romantasy fans crave. Mallory's internal conflict over her status as a fraud and her desire for genuine belonging adds emotional depth, while the murder mystery keeps the pages turning with twists that feel earned rather than shocking for shock's sake. A small critique I had was with Mallory's character. At times, she felt a little naive, especially in certain situations where I thought she should have been more cautious. Still, she’s a likable protagonist, and her journey through the story was satisfying.

CHAPTER ONE

If a young lady did not wish to be murdered, it was advisable that she not spend her evenings meeting with strangers on dark street corners.

Mallory knew this. She was an expert on not getting murdered—a skill she tended to value higher than, say, embroidering pincushions or playing scales on a harpsichord or the proper way of holding a salad fork. Mallory knew how to hold a salad fork, thank you very much, and it was in a tight fist while you sent those sharp little tines straight into the thigh of a would-be attacker. Or the eyeball. Or the gullet. The human body had plenty of vulnerable places to choose from, and she didn’t like to limit herself.

Mallory waited, adjusting her grip on her artist portfolio. She heard the distant whinny of a horse. The grind of carriage wheels a block over. A colony of bats squeaking overhead. Though the shadows reached for her, she remained haloed in the light of the street’s single oil lamp, so she would be easy for her clients to spot.

Easy to murder, a voice whispered, and in response she idly scratched her leg with the toe of her boot, feeling the handle of the dagger she kept hidden there. It might have been more respectable to keep it hidden beneath her skirts, but if she was under attack, she hardly wanted to waste time digging through layers of muslin and wool. What was she going to do? Ask her attacker to kindly pause while she searched for the weapon in her garter?

Boot heels clipped on the cobblestones as two gentlemen meandered past. She stood straighter, expecting her clients. One man was dressed entirely in black, while the other wore every color under the sun. She eyed them warily, but they merely tipped nonexistent hats to her as they vanished into the night.

The clock tower in the city square chimed the eleventh hour. Her foot tapped impatiently.

Finally, from the moon-spotted shadows, two new figures emerged on the other side of the street. Mallory studied them as they entered the lamplight. The man was light-skinned, broad and portly, wearing a stylish capotain hat and ruffled cravat. Either high society or pretending to be, in hopes he would eventually get admitted into their exclusive circles.

His companion was a petite girl in a shapeless crimson robe, the trailing hem gathering filth from the street. Her hair had been shaved nearly to the scalp, making way for the delicate tattoo of a bow and arrow above her left ear.

Mallory’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. She’d had many odd characters on her tours. The scholars who peppered her with earnest questions about the mansion’s history and the Saphir family’s current political affiliations. (Luckily, Mallory was adept at making things up, because really, how should she know?) There were those who were intrigued by anything to do with the occult—not because it was strange or taboo, but because it was fascinating. The guests who came for a thrill, so they could proclaim drunkenly to their friends back at the tavern that they had survived the House Saphir. And then there were the romantics. The ladies who were determined to swoon and the suitors who were determined to “protect” them with needless acts of chivalry.

But a priestess of Tyrr? This was a new one.

“Welcome, Priestess,” said Mallory. “You’re a long way from the nearest temple.”

The girl giggled shyly. “I’m only an initiate. I take the vows next week.”

“My sister has decided to devote her life in service to the gods,” the man said dryly. “I cannot fathom why.”

The girl kept smiling, though there was an edge to her expression. “That’s because you can’t fathom devoting your life to anyone but yourself.”

The man shrugged.

Mallory hated to admit it, but a part of her agreed with him. Devotion to the seven gods had become a popular pastime among society’s elite after the fall of the veil nearly two decades ago—but she didn’t see the appeal. As far as she could tell, the gods were taking no more interest in the affairs of humans now than they had back when the veil was still in place.

“This is where the tour begins, is it not?” asked the man.

“The House Saphir tour?” she said. “The one full of torture and dismemberment? Yes, you’re in the right place. Though usually this tour appeals to heathens and outcasts, whereas you both appear so very … respectable.”

The man’s cheek twitched, evidently unsure if she was complimenting or insulting them.

“You must be Sophia and Louis Dumas,” said Mallory, shifting her weighty portfolio to her other hand. “What brings you here tonight?”

“I feel it is my duty to introduce my sister to something of the world before they lock her up in that temple and never let her out again,” said Louis.

“Priestesses are not prisoners, Louis. And there will be plenty of travel. One of my foremost responsibilities will be visiting townships to preside over treaties and peaceful negotiations, attending ceremonial hunts, blessing the weaponry of our great—”

“Yes, yes, what an exciting life you will lead,” Louis interrupted, while shooting Mallory a see what I mean? look. “This is our last night in Morant. We had our fortunes told by a quaint little witch on Rue Tilance, and she suggested we take this tour before we depart. She spoke highly of the guide.”

Mallory smiled thinly. That quaint little witch was her older sister. “I’ll try not to disappoint.”

“She had the most fascinating wares in her shop,” Sophia said, studying the iron gate that towered above the street. “Louis bought an authentic god-relic—one of Wyrdith’s golden feathers. We were guaranteed it would bring him good luck in the coming year.”

“A rare treasure indeed,” said Mallory, pretending to be impressed. “What did you pay for it?”

Louis puffed up his chest. “Only twelve lys.”

“A bargain.” Mallory turned her head so he wouldn’t see her proud grin. That was well worth the cost of the gold foil and hours that Anaïs had spent figuring out how to apply it to those damned crow feathers.

She glanced up as the moon winked from behind a cloud. Her final guest, a Monsieur Badeaux, was officially late. “We are waiting for one more gentleman to join us, then we shall begin.”

“You mentioned heathens,” said Monsieur Dumas in a joking tone. “I imagine this tour draws plenty of unsavory characters.”

“On occasion,” said Mallory. “But then, you are taking the tour, are you not?”

Louis frowned. “What are you implying?”

“Only that it’s rare to truly know a person’s character, whether they are complete strangers or our dearest relations. Most people, if asked to imagine the circumstance of their own murder, will picture a stranger. Perhaps a random attack in some dark alley. But study enough murders, and you’ll come to realize that it’s far more common for the victim and the killer to know one another, sometimes intimately. It’s usually the husband, but…” She heaved a dramatic sigh. “Murder between siblings is not unheard of.”

Sophia’s brow pinched in mild confusion, like she couldn’t imagine why Mallory was telling her this, even as her brother sputtered in offense. Before he could defend his honor and proclaim that he did not have any intention of killing anyone (though isn’t what they all say?), Mallory held out a palm.

“While we wait, the cost of the tour is six galets each, paid up front.”

“Six galets?” said Louis. “That fortune teller told us—”

Sophia nudged him hard in the ribs, cutting him off. With a grumble, he dug the payment from his coin purse.

“Fabulous,” said Mallory, tucking the money away. “As our final companion is running late, perhaps we will begin without him.”

She faced the mansion, which sat like a crouched monster in the shadows off the street corner, illuminated by the faintest hint of lamplight and a touch of silver from the waxing moon.

The chains on the gate were an illusion. They were bulky and ominous, crafted of iron and rust, and were generally enough to deter curious passersby from trespassing on the abandoned grounds. But if anyone bothered to look closely, they would see that the padlock on the chains was broken, and had been for some time.

Mallory had absolutely nothing to do with that. She swore.

“Is it … legal for us to be here?” asked Sophia as Mallory unwound the clinking chain.

“Not to worry, I conduct these tours all the time,” Mallory said, pretending that was a proper answer.

Sophia did not press further.

The hinges screamed as Mallory pushed the gate open and squeezed through. Louis made a face as the lichen-covered metal left streaks on his jacket, though Sophia did not seem to mind the same smudges on her robes.

A straight pathway led through the garden to the mansion, but Mallory walked slowly, allowing the tourists to take in the dried-up fountains. The crumbling garden walls. And—before them, the mansion. Narrow but tall, with three floors for living and entertaining, plus an attic that was mostly servants’ quarters. The exterior was entirely white limestone, but soot, dirt, and trailing vines of ivy and wisteria had been doing their best to devour the façade for decades. Leaded and stained-glass windows that had been the height of fashion a century ago were now filthy, broken, or both. The massive entry doors—an arch of dark oak—were carved with medallions of demonic boar heads. A fitting welcome, Mallory thought, to the house that claimed such a sordid past.

“Let us begin,” said Mallory, walking backward on the cobblestone path. “What do you know about Monsieur Le Bleu?”

After a hesitation, Louis responded, “He murdered people.”

“Wives,” Sophia added, her voice quietly reverent. “He murdered his wives.”

Mallory tucked her portfolio beneath one arm and began her recitation.

“His name was Count Bastien Saphir, but most people know him by his moniker: Monsieur Le Bleu, thus named because his hair and beard were so black that in certain lights, they were said to appear almost blue. Of course, the surname Saphir may have had something to do with it as well.”

She paused between two weed-infested garden beds. It was difficult to picture them as they had once been, with manicured boxwoods and colorful geraniums.

“He was born in his family’s country estate outside the village of Comorre, forty miles northwest of here, and grew up an only child, the sole heir of the family winemaking fortune. For generations, Saphir’s estate Ruby Comorre was one of the most expensive and sought-after wines on the market. As it is fortified with brandy, it can be preserved for years, even decades—and many say the flavor improves with time. This has made it particularly desirable with merchants who trade with countries as far as Isbren and Gai-Yin, where it is a rare commodity among the nobility. Connoisseurs also appreciate that the additional alcohol gets you drunk faster.”

She climbed the front steps to the house. “But Bastien was bored with country life, so when he was twenty-one years of age, he bought this parcel of land, here in the heart of Morant, for the construction of the mansion before you. He spared no expense, as you can see from the gold-plated sundial on the south terrace and the decorative medallions that ornament the upper floors—each one unique and hand-carved by a local artisan.”

“I beg your pardon,” interrupted Monsieur Dumas, whose scowl had been deepening as Mallory had set the stage for her horrific tale. “Are you going to give the entire tour?”

Mallory stared at him. “That was my intention.”

“But you … You’re…” His puzzled expression turned to one of distaste. “I thought you were the secretary, or … You know. The one who would greet us and take our hats and coats. Not the guide.”

Mallory’s jaw twitched. “You were mistaken.”

“But this tour is about … murder.” He dropped his voice. “It isn’t ladylike to speak of such things.”

Sophia grimaced in embarrassment.

Mallory was beginning to understand why Sophia might want to run off and join an order that pledged their lives to the god of archery and war, a god who did not care if you were male or female or something else altogether. If Louis was going to make comments like this all night, she would spend her evening fighting the urge to roll her eyes.

That was a lie. She would roll her eyes without hesitation and without apology.

But it might cost her a tip at the end of the night, and no amount of chauvinism would change the weight of his coins in her purse.

She sighed. “I am Morant’s foremost expert on Monsieur Le Bleu and the Saphir family, and currently the only tour guide operating at this mansion. If your delicate sensibilities would prefer to spend the evening in the gambling hall, I will not keep you. But if you wish to see inside the house, then I suggest you decide quickly so we can move on.” She paused, before adding, “Also, the fee is nonrefundable.”

Monsieur Dumas cast a disapproving look at his sister, as though he didn’t want her getting ideas from such a headstrong woman, which made Mallory wonder how much he knew about the patron god his sister had chosen to serve.

“As I was saying. Once the house was complete, Monsieur Le Bleu began to spend nearly all his time here in Morant. Which is where our tale truly begins.” Taking hold of the handle shaped like a sea serpent, Mallory pulled the door open with a dramatic, creaking groan. “Welcome to the House Saphir.”

CHAPTER TWO

Shadows reached for them as they stepped through the doorway. The foyer was thick with the smell of dust and mildew and rat droppings. Mallory was used to it, but Sophia wrinkled her nose and Louis pulled out a handkerchief to cover his mouth.

Mallory picked up the lantern she kept on the vestibule table and lit the candle inside, illuminating the foyer. An ornate geometric pattern in white and blue tiles spanned from the doorway into the drawing room. A mahogany staircase curved upward, each balustrade carved into an ominous hooded figure. An arched doorway straight ahead guided visitors into the corridor to the dining hall and ballroom. It was a dizzying way to be received—which was quite by design. This was not a house intended to make visitors feel comfortable. It was intended to make them feel awed, honored, and entirely unbalanced.

Mallory lit the occasional candle as they passed through the ground floor of the mansion, explaining the purpose of various rooms as she went: The parlor where guests had once been greeted with a glass of House Saphir’s famous wine, served ice-cold in the summer months—the epitome of luxury. The solarium where some broken pots still remained, the last vestiges of what must have been a lush jungle encased in glass. Mallory explained how Bastien Saphir had loved oranges and thus insisted on keeping a live orange tree in the center of the room, so he would always have the fruit at hand. She pointed out the empty birdcages that still hung from the ceiling, having once displayed golden canaries and melodic nightingales for the enjoyment of Saphir’s guests.

They passed through the dining room with its paneled walls and ornate chandeliers that now boasted as many cobwebs as crystals, while Mallory spoke of the lavish parties, the fine soirées, the endless feasts that Saphir had hosted for Morant’s elite.

“With a reputation for generosity, he was said to be the most upstanding of gentlemen. Invitations to his home were highly coveted.” Mallory approached a wall where a painting was concealed behind a swath of black velvet. “He was also devilishly handsome.”

She pulled back the velvet. The glow from her lantern danced across a portrait of a gentleman wearing a richly embroidered blue-and-gold cape over a matching doublet. The portrait had been commissioned when Bastien Saphir was in his midtwenties, and his features were startling in their severity—as if a sculptor had taken a chisel to his jutting cheekbones and sharp jaw. A tidy beard and mustache were as black as ink, as was the long dark hair tied at the nape of his neck. Most striking were his eyes. Even in the dim lighting, they were alarmingly blue, a distinctive family trait.

An unladylike sound filled the room—the noise of someone sticking out their tongue and blowing out air.

Mallory had been expecting it, and she tried not to cringe.

“If he’s devilishly handsome,” said a high-pitched, nasal voice, “then I’m the queen of Lysraux.”

Mallory didn’t answer. It would have made her guests uncomfortable, given that they hadn’t heard a thing. Rule number one when it came to interacting with ghosts—never, ever engage with them when a living person was nearby. Do not look; do not react.

Most people already thought she and her sister were peculiar. No point making it worse.

Instead, she surreptitiously scanned the room.

Triphine was sitting at the head of the dining table, her feet propped up beside a candelabra, her slight figure dressed in a nightgown and pale blue shawl, the edges of her physical form shimmering slightly. All ghosts shimmered, their bodies trapped somewhere between corporeal and ephemeral. Triphine had been beautiful in life, and was just as beautiful in death—with the delicate bone structure of a duchess descended from Gai-Yin royalty. Her luster was only slightly marred by the blackish-red blood that covered the front of her chest, compliments of the sword that had impaled her.

“I always pictured him as a pirate,” Sophia said quietly, still staring at the painting, unaware of the ghost’s presence. Her voice had a dreamlike quality to it as she took in Le Bleu’s secretive grin. “I thought he would be … rougher looking. Less genteel.”

“A pirate,” said Triphine haughtily. “Where do you find these people?”

“It’s a common misconception,” said Mallory. “The Saphir family owned many merchant ships for exporting their wine, and so had a lucrative trade business on the side. Though Monsieur Le Bleu did occasionally travel by ship for work, he was no pirate. Come, I will show you the ballroom.”

“Oh, you’re going to ignore me again, are you?” said Triphine, standing to follow as Mallory led the couple through a set of double doors. “That’s exceedingly impolite, Miss Fontaine. You know I was struggling with a horrid cough last week. Could feel the sickness all through my chest. Was bedridden for days. And you’re not even going to ask how I’m feeling?” She let out a stream of wet coughs to punctuate her irritation.

Mallory walked faster, hoping the clack of her boots on the ballroom’s parquet floors would drown out the ruckus of Triphine’s complaints. She busied herself lighting a few of the wall sconces while Sophia and Louis took in the space. There was a raised platform where musicians would have played, and heavy curtains to hide stage performers. Tall arched windows and walls lined with glittering mirrors. It would have been glorious in its day, but now their reflections were eerie and faint in the flickering candlelight, the still air dank and suffocating.

Triphine clutched her shawl against an imaginary chill. She alone did not cast a reflection. “You know, I had something important to tell you, Mallory. But if you’re going to ignore me, then I won’t say a word, and you’re going to wish I had!”

Mallory doubted that. Triphine had her uses, but she was also a constant thorn in Mallory’s side.

“What happened there?” said Louis, pointing to a corner of the room, where black scorch marks marred the floors and walls. Some of the gilded wallpaper was missing, revealing blackened wood beneath.

“Some children sneaked in years ago,” said Mallory. “Thought it would be amusing to light a few candles and try to summon the spirit of Le Bleu back from the dead. Instead, they nearly burned the place to the ground. Luckily, a few neighbors saw the smoke and managed to put out the flames in time.”

A thump came from overhead.

Everyone stilled, nervous gazes rising to the ceiling with its tin panels and chandeliers that had not seen candles in decades.

Mallory cleared her throat. “Well. It is haunted,” she said with a light laugh.

“Mallory,” said Triphine. “That wasn’t me.”

“Monsieur Le Bleu’s first marriage was to Duchess Triphine Maeng,” Mallory interrupted, ignoring Triphine’s affronted harrumph. “Their wedding ceremony took place right here in this room. Nearly three hundred guests were in attendance. But she was not only his first wife.” Mallory paused dramatically. “She was also his first victim.”

Sophia shivered. Her brother, checking his teeth in one of the mirrors, did not.

“Fine, ignore me,” Triphine said. “But if you’re going to talk about me like I’m not even here, then you’d better at least tell them about my flowers.”

“Le Bleu was the most eligible bachelor in Morant. The wedding was quite a spectacle.” Mallory opened up her drawing portfolio, revealing the first page—a charcoal sketch of the ballroom they now stood in, bedecked with elaborate flower arrangements on every wall. “The décor for the event was well-documented. The florist hired to decorate the house earned undeniable fame for the extravagant arrangements made of tropical fruits and fragrant flowers, the kinds of which most of the guests had never seen before. They were brought to Morant under special glass domes to retain the heat and moisture from their natural habitats.”

“They were beautiful,” Triphine crowed. “The wedding of the century, they called it.”

“Did we pay to hear you talk about flowers?” grunted Louis. “Get on with it.”

Sophia smacked him on the arm.

“Fourteen months after the wedding,” Mallory continued, “Triphine gave birth to Bastien the second. He was the only child Le Bleu would sire. Almost immediately following the birth, rumors began to circulate that Triphine had fallen ill. That childbirth had been too much for her. She was overcome with fatigue, eating poorly, spending weeks at a time in bed, too frail to venture into society.”

“My mother always said I had a weak constitution,” said Triphine. “But I was actually feeling quite invigorated after a few days of bed rest. Still, Bastien wouldn’t let me leave. Kept saying I needed more rest, to be strong to raise our child.” She snorted. “Manipulative bastard.”

“Less than three months after the birth of their son … Duchess Triphine Maeng-Saphir was dead. No doctor had been called to see to her ailments. No coroner came to view the body. The sacred rites of Velos were not to be followed—no anointments or prayers, no adorning her with flowers, no preparation for a proper burial.”

Sophia gasped, apparently more appalled at the lack of ritual than she was at the thought of murder.

“Bastien claimed to have conducted the rituals and buried the body himself,” said Mallory. “He claimed it was out of fear that Triphine’s disease was contagious and he did not want to risk the lives of his servants or the townspeople. As he was so very good at playing the part of the mourning widower, no one thought to question him.”

“Lying scumbag,” Triphine muttered.

Mallory let her voice drip with irony. “If ghosts could talk, perhaps Duchess Triphine could tell us the truth of what happened to her. But as it is, we are left to our own speculations.”

“Oh, har har, very funny.”

Mallory gestured to the ballroom’s wide expanse. “Rumor has it that Triphine still haunts these rooms. To this day, you might catch a glimpse of her wandering the halls in her pale nightgown and blue shawl. They say that at times her spirit will reach out to those who come to visit.” Mallory stretched out her hand, as if she would tap Monsieur Dumas on the shoulder, though he was halfway across the room. “And that she asks for one thing. The same question. Over and over aga—”

A shriek pierced the heavy air. Sophia, deathly pale, pointed at something behind Mallory.

A shadow fell across the floor.

She saw him, a figure reflected in the mirror. A man, tall and slender, with black hair and a long jacket, looming from the darkness, not two steps behind her.

Fingers grazed the sleeve of Mallory’s dress.

Her mind lurched.

Intruder. Murderer. Le Bleu.

On instinct, Mallory reached behind her and caught hold of the hand. She twisted his arm, throwing her weight into the movement as she drove the figure to the ground. The floors shook as he landed with a grunt, the air knocked clean out of him.

Mallory stared down at … a boy.

Maybe an intruder. Maybe a murderer. But not a particularly threatening one, and certainly not the ghost of Monsieur Le Bleu.

He pressed a hand to his chest as he attempted to draw in breath.

“Who in Velos’s name are you?” Mallory cried.

He wheezed slightly, then managed to suck in enough air to mutter, “Ar—er. Axel. Axel Badeaux.” He coughed. “I’m here for the tour.”

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#Review - Weird Magic by Karen Chance #Fantasy

2026-03-11T00:01:00.000-04:00

Series: Lia de Croissets # 2
Format: Kindle, 531 pages
Release Date: January 14, 2026
Publisher: Karen Chance
Source: Amazon
Genre: Urban Fantasy

Someone is trying to kidnap the leader of the Were world, Sebastian Arnou, and it’s not hard to figure out who. The powerful Clan Rand just lost their chieftain, who challenged for the top spot and lost—both the fight and his life. Now his clan is out for revenge and has split the Were community in two.

To make matters worse, Rand has allied with the dangerous mages of the Black Circle, who have already plunged the magical world into war. One of the organization’s leaders has taken an interest in Lia de Croissets, a newly turned werewolf. As a member of the War Mage Corps, the police branch of the world’s leading magical organization, the Silver Circle, she stands against the dark, but the mage’s interest appears to be more personal.

In fact, the kidnapping attempt on Sebastian and later moves against Lia’s new little clan all appear to be geared toward getting something from her. But she has no idea what the mage wants, or why she and her clan of former outlaw wolves should be of such interest to the dark. And once she finds out, the answer could change not only Lia’s own life, but the course of the entire war.

Weird Magic is the second installment in author Karen Chance's Lia de Croissets series. This story takes place in the same universe as the author's Cassie Palmer series. This novel picks up after Junk Magic and dives deeper into a world of warring magical factions, werewolf politics, and high-stakes action. The story centers on Lia de Croissets, a newly turned werewolf and member of the War Mage Corps (the enforcement arm of the powerful Silver Circle).

Lia is still adjusting to her dual nature as both a mage and a wolf, leading a ragtag clan of former outlaws known as Clan Fireborn. The plot kicks off with a clear threat: someone is targeting Sebastian Arnou, the leader of the Were world, with the vengeful Clan Rand (allied with the villainous Black Circle mages) as the obvious culprits. This kidnapping scheme quickly escalates into broader attacks on Lia's clan, and it becomes apparent that a high-ranking dark mage has a very personal—and mysterious—interest in Lia herself.

What does he want from her? The answer ties into ancient magic, family secrets, and the ongoing war that's tearing the supernatural world apart. The magic here is vivid, unpredictable, and delightfully weird (as the title promises), blending traditional spellcraft with werewolf instincts, lost abilities that Lia is rediscovering, and chaotic battle sequences involving everything from live zombies to explosive magical duels. The interconnected universe shines through with well-timed cameos from familiar faces in the Cassandra Palmer and Dorina Basarab series.

Lia is a compelling protagonist: fierce, funny, gritty, and deeply human despite her supernatural upgrades. Her growth in mastering new (or ancient) skills adds heart to the spectacle, while her clan dynamics with Cyrus provide strong found-family vibes, complete with believable kids, trauma, love, and hope amid the grimness. The chemistry between characters grounds the chaos, and there's plenty of laughter, sorrow, violence, and emotional weight to balance the spectacle. However, there is a constant flaw: Lia's habit of ending up unconscious at key moments might frustrate those who want her to stay in control longer, though it fits her underdog arc.

Unfortunately, this book came out 4 years after the first book in the series, which in my opinion, is way too long. I would recommend to readers that you try to read Junk Magic and Weird Magic back to back so that you don't get confused by who the characters are, from kids tossed away by the Mage schools, to Were's tossed away by their former clans. I would love to see another crossover, this time with Lia and Dory. I think fans would love that mash-up!

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#Review - First Sign of Danger by Kelley Armstrong #Mystery #Suspense

2026-03-05T00:00:00.001-05:00

Series: Haven's Rock # 4
Format: 337 pages, Hardcover
Release Date: February 17, 2026
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Source: Publisher
Genre: Mystery, Suspense

Detective Casey Duncan and her husband, Sheriff Eric Dalton, are entering a new chapter of life as parents to their six-month-old baby. Their family is hidden away in the sanctuary town of Haven's Rock where they can live safe and private lives. But when they encounter hikers too close to the borders of Haven's Rock, they realize they're in danger of being exposed.

When they find one of the hikers dead the next day, they realize that their paranoia was justified, but they're no closer to finding out who these people were and what they were doing in the vicinity of Haven's Rock. Only by tracing the hikers' movements, as well as examining the recent behavior of their closest neighbors, the workers of a secretive mining camp, will they be able to figure out where the threat is coming from and shut it down. Otherwise, the lives of everyone in Haven's Rock--and their safe, secure new existence--are at risk.

First Sign of Danger is the Fourth installment in author Kelley Armstrong's Haven's Rock series. The story picks up with Detective Casey Duncan and her husband, Sheriff Eric Dalton, now navigating life as new parents to their six-month-old baby, Rory. Haven's Rock remains the off-the-grid sanctuary it has always been—a hidden Yukon settlement designed for people who need to disappear and start over, where trust is hard-won, and secrecy is paramount.

The couple's family outing takes a tense turn when they encounter suspicious hikers venturing too close to the town's carefully concealed borders. Paranoia sets in quickly: exposure could destroy everything the residents have built. The discovery of one hiker's body the next day—clearly a victim of murder—confirms their worst fears. What begins as a potential security breach spirals into a knotty investigation involving conspiracy, possible espionage, betrayal, high-stakes chases through rugged terrain, and unsettling connections to a secretive nearby mining operation.

Casey and Eric must trace the hikers' movements, scrutinize their enigmatic neighbors, and protect their community while balancing the demands of parenthood in such an unforgiving environment. Casey, Eric, and crew are pushed to investigate what the mining camp is really doing, who is behind the operation, and how many people have died who have gotten too close to unraveling the facts behind the operation.

Casey remains a compelling protagonist—smart, tough, and deeply protective—while her evolving dynamic with Eric feels authentic and layered, especially as they juggle sheriff duties with newborn life. The addition of the baby adds emotional weight without ever feeling forced; it grounds the high-stakes thriller elements in real human vulnerability. The supporting cast of Haven's Rock residents continues to shine, with quirks and backstories that make the community feel lived-in and believable.

The mystery itself is intricate and satisfying. It weaves personal stakes with broader intrigue (murder, conspiracy, and hints of something larger), culminating in a resolution that ties up the central puzzle while advancing the series arc to what appears to be the ending of the series, and a final conflict with the people behind the former Rockton who seem eager to either destroy Haven's Rock, or lure Eric back under their thumbs.

CHAPTER ONE

Our daughter is six months old, and our dog is still clearly convinced that we have no idea what we’re doing and, without her intervention, our child will crawl into the woods and be devoured by wolves. We’d been hiking for an hour, with Rory happily bouncing along in the carrier on Dalton’s back. I’d walked behind him, so I can ensure she’s okay … and make faces at her.

We’ve stopped in a clearing, taken her out, and put her on the ground, and Storm is in full herding mode. Despite the fact that Newfoundlands are not herding dogs. Despite the fact that Rory is crawling around gurgling gleefully. Also despite the fact that we walk this route once a week and put Rory down in the exact same spot every time.

When Storm’s anxious growls turn to full-throated Newfie woofs, I cover my ears and shout to be heard over the noise. “One of these days, we are leaving you behind, dog.”

She keeps barking. We keep wincing. And Rory grins up at her massive black-haired mop of a big sister.

I order Storm to lie down, which makes barking impossible, so she resorts to loud grumbling as she watches Rory, ready for … I don’t know, our baby to leap to her feet and make a run for it?

I drop to the ground beside Rory, which seems to calm Storm. Dalton roots around in my pack and pulls out the water canteen, granola bars, and one digestive cookie for our red-cheeked teething baby.

“See, Casey?” he says as he hands me the canteen. “She just needed a distraction from her teeth. Long walks always work. Now, the trick is to tire her out so she falls asleep on the way back and then we can ease her into her crib and really enjoy our day off.”

I stretch out in the long grass. “I’m enjoying this.”

His brows rise. “And that’s all you want for a very rare shared day off when the baby is actually sleeping?”

I smile. “No, I’ll take whatever you’re offering. I just mean that I like this. And not just because she’s finally quiet.”

“Rory? Or Storm?”

“Both.”

I lay my head on Storm’s flank as I watch our daughter grabbing at a grass strand. My miracle baby. A miracle in the sense that I didn’t think I’d ever be able to have children. And a miracle because I never thought I’d find someone I wanted to have them with.

Dalton and I wouldn’t have dared try for a child until the town was fully functional, but nature intervened and gave us Rory. As for Haven’s Rock, it’s been chugging along uneventfully for six months, and uneventful is exactly how we like it. The town continues to fill with people seeking refuge, and we’re growing confident in our ability to provide that refuge.

It’s early September now. In southern Canada, it’d still be summer, with fall on the horizon. Up here, it’s been autumn for a few weeks, the world turning golden and quiet as we begin the descent into another long winter.

Dalton finishes his bar, stretches out in front of Rory, and prods things for her to explore—twigs, rocks, a bug. He grew up in the wilderness and has never left, and I smile as I watch him engaging our daughter in her environment. Storm might not like seeing Rory crawling about on the ground, but this is the life she will lead, and she’s already happiest here, in the sunshine watching a bug crawl up a twig.

When Storm leaps up, unceremoniously dumping me to the ground, I barely have time to recover before she resumes barking.

“Really?” I say. “What’s wrong now? Rory hasn’t moved from…”

I trail off as I realize Storm is looking into the forest. Of course, my husband has already realized this and is on his feet, scanning the trees, fingers resting on the butt of his gun.

Yes, Dalton carries a sidearm. So do I. In Rockton, he was the sheriff and I was his detective, and we continue those roles in Haven’s Rock, mostly because we’ve learned it makes people feel safe, and when the majority of our residents are victims, feeling safe is critical.

We no longer wear the guns around town—that was a Wild West affectation the Rockton council insisted on. But we usually wear them when we leave Haven’s Rock. Dalton doesn’t take his out, though. Just rests his fingers there. We’re not readying our weapons when the “danger” is almost certainly a fox or moose.

Newfoundlands aren’t known to be vocal, and Storm never was … until we brought a baby into the house. Last week, she went into a barking frenzy at a vole that snuck into our chalet. Apparently, it wasn’t only wolves that could devour our child.

As she barks, I lay my hand on her head, telling her we’ve got this. It’s not until I scoop up Rory that Storm quiets. She moves beside Dalton, who’s listening intently. Something’s out there. Big enough that he can hear it moving.

Dalton surveys the clearing. He’s trying to decide whether it’s safe to leave me here while he investigates. If Storm’s barks didn’t send the animal fleeing, it’s not small, and at this time of year predators may actually come closer when they hear her. Snow on the mountaintops warns that winter is coming. Sick or elderly predators can become desperate. That goes double for bears, looking to store up fat to get them through hibernation. Stories of unavoidable grizzly attacks often happen at this time of year, and that’s why I’m not only carrying my sidearm—I also have a rifle on my back. We have a baby now. We are ridiculously careful.

I motion for Dalton to take the rifle and investigate. Then I hold Rory in one arm as I tug the bear spray from my pack and put it in my jacket pocket. Usually, if I saw a bear I’d go for the spray first. With Rory, I’ll make that judgment call when the time comes. Bear spray is very effective under normal circumstances, but a desperate bear does not behave normally.

It’s only after Storm and Dalton are gone that I realize I have too much to juggle here—baby, bear spray, gun.

Storm may have a point. As careful as we are, we’re still new parents.

I look around and then back against a thick pine.

Rory fusses. She was happily on the ground, playing with Daddy, and now Mom is awkwardly holding her in one arm, and Dad and Storm are gone, and it’s boring. Really boring. Which reminds her that her mouth hurts where her first tooth is breaking through.

I bounce her and put my other arm around her, while keeping it ready to grab my gun or spray. I whisper to her under my breath, singing “Itsy Bitsy Spider,” which is one of three nursery songs I know, and I’m probably getting the words wrong, but she’s six months old—it doesn’t matter. And it really doesn’t matter right now, as I try to keep her quiet—

Rory roars. She came into the world that way, and she’s never stopped. It’s even the joking version of how she got her name. I kiss her cheeks and her forehead and she roars in rage and the remembered pain of her teething, her round face going beet red up to the roots of her wild black hair.

“Shh, shh, shh,” I say as I bounce her faster.

Crashing sounds in the bushes. A dark shape appears maybe ten feet beyond the clearing.

My hand drops to my gun. Screw the spray. I have a baby, and I am not taking chances—

“Hey!” Dalton shouts. “Back the fuck up! Now!”

It is a testament to my fear that, for a moment, I think he might actually be talking to me.

When a human voice answers, I stop, hand on my gun. It sounds like a woman. It’s not Lilith, the wilderness photographer who lives out here. There’s also a mining camp, but there aren’t any women among the miners or staff.

Could it be one of our residents? We have thirty-three women in town now, and unless I know them well, I’m not going to recognize their voice when they’re freaking out … which they would be if Dalton caught them on a secret hike.

Rory has stopped, too, as she turns toward the voice. Something new. Something interesting. I move in that direction slowly, listening until I can make out words.

“—husband was trying to see where we are, and he slipped and fell. His ankle’s twisted. I heard the dog barking and came running. Then I heard a baby. Is there a town here? A settlement?”

I keep walking toward the voices as Dalton says no, there isn’t a town for a hundred kilometers or more. When I step out onto the path, he glowers my way, but I shake my head. It’s not as if she didn’t hear the baby.

I also see the reason for her panic. Dalton has his gun out. His finger isn’t anywhere near the trigger, but all she sees is a man with a gun and a very large dog. When she spots me, she makes a noise almost like a yelp of relief and hurries in my direction.

“Stop, please,” I say calmly. “I understand you’re in some trouble, but this isn’t a campground. We don’t expect to bump into anyone out here, so we’re naturally going to be cautious.”

“O-okay,” she stammers. “Right. Yes. Sorry. But that’s why I came running. We didn’t think we had a chance of finding anyone out here. Especially this time of year. I know it’s off-season for hiking, but this is when my husband had vacation time, and a friend said it was gorgeous here, and the forecast was good and—” She stops and takes a deep breath and then puts out her hand. “I’m Gretchen. We’re from Whitehorse.”

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