I wanted to like this book. When I saw the plot, I thought of Tamora Pierce and her magical, powerful girl characters. The Girl King could be a classic but with Asian identity and modern themes, something both nostalgic and fresh. What it is instead is a diversion. It’s a fun Mission: Impossible or James …
Winter of the Witch proves, as few trilogies do, that the hat trick is possible. Three books without any deviation from the stellar quality of the first, each with a unique story and meaningful resolution, but also character and plot development across three books and a satisfying grand finale. Put it like that and it’s …
The Sea Dreams It Is The Sky reads like House of Leaves had an unholy demon baby with The Shadow of the Wind. In the best way. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, then rest assured: it’s terrific, it’s horrific, and it’s smart as hell. Part Gothic horror and part cosmic horror …
In honor of the release of This Cruel Design, Emily Suvada’s second book, I read This Mortal Coil, her debut and first installment the trilogy. First let me say that Emily Suvada has some serious cojones and the prose to back it up, that’s for sure. Before fifty pages are up, there’s murder, kidnapping, multiple …
Jennie Liu certainly jumped in with both feet with her debut Girls on the Line, a tense and emotionally evocative novel about a two factory workers in a small Chinese city struggling against vast bureaucratic and criminal forces. This is a surprisingly fast-paced tale, starting on day one of Luli’s job at a factory the …
Jane Yolen was YA before there was YA, so it’s interesting to revisit a classic author via new work. Especially since that new work is a novel told entirely in poetry. Jason Reynolds and and Jacqueline Woodson are proof that the novel in verse is not just viable, but supremely potent. But what about SFF …
I didn’t so much read Grim Lovelies as swallow it whole, devouring it in less than a day. It was a fast-paced, action-heavy narrative with innovative magic and a diverse and appealing cast. And because it was fun, it was easy to rush past its flaws, though there were a few. Because of that it …
Nobody ever asked the little girl from The Exorcist what she wanted. The demon didn’t ask for her consent before taking over her body; but the priests didn’t ask her permission to cast the devil out of her, either. The whole movie is about Regan, and yet we never actually get her story. She has …
Witches are very on trend this season in SFF and YA, and there have been other trends in mermaids, gunslingers, and–obviously–vampires and werewolves. But let’s turn to less popular creatures: dryads, and others (mainly women) who transform into trees. There’s not a lot of call (yet) for characters whose main feature is an ability to …
The woods are a perennial (heh) theme in fantasy, and I could go on and on about the Jungian undertones of quests into the primordial unknown, but I’ll spare you in favor of the internet’s favorite format: another list! Here are ten upcoming or recent books to get you in the mood for autumn walks, …