If you’re itching for more heist or gangster YA à la Ace of Shades or Six of Crows, then Into the Crooked Place by Alexandra Christo is here to provide you with all the scams and schemes you’ve been missing. Tavia is a street performer and confidence woman in Creije, a city that traffics in …
Everyone knows good things come in threes, and the most recent example is the comics by B. Mure in the Ismyre series. The third installment is immanent, and there’s no better time than now to start reading this sincere, lovely, and meaningful trio of comics. The wobbly, sketchy style combined with a bit of a …
In a slightly surprising turn of events, Game of Thrones took Outstanding Drama but didn’t sweep all the Emmy categories as predicted. I’m glad the lackluster final season didn’t get rewarded for being famous, but I am sad for the actors who did the best with what they were given–and for the show itself, which …
Rat. Crow. Dog. Metal. Long ago, the four nations lived in harmo—wait. Something’s off. Oh, right, this is the book Steel Crow Saga by Paul Krueger. And though it rises from a slew of homages, epic fantasy has its own unique charms and presence to warrant committing to its heft and promised future volumes. There …
The Monster of Elendhaven reminds me of a lot of things, but nothing so much as a cup of tea, unmitigated by milk or sweetness, perfectly bitter, so strong that it makes you rush and jitter to drink it to the dregs in one go. And at the bottom, vague portents spelled out in the …
It’s been a while since we heard from M. H. Boroson, but his debut The Girl with the Ghost Eyes made such a strong impression that I had no issues jumping back into what is now a planned trilogy. His alternate universe San Francisco is a magical place, and I was beyond excited to resume …
Bone houses are not, as you might guess, architecture constructed from bone. I would like to see a book written about that, but I’m glad Emily Lloyd-Jones didn’t write it, because she came up with an even more interesting and creepy idea. In her world, bone houses are the living dead, “houses” in which the …
In the near-future thriller The Warehouse, Rob Hart explores the dangerous the convergence of business and politics. The novel kicks off with the perspective of Gibson Wells, CEO of Cloud, speaking on his life experiences. Cloud is the tech giant company that hires and houses it’s employees all in warehouses around the U.S. These passages …
e.e. cummings exhorted his readers to “dive for dreams or a slogan may topple you,” and I have tried to keep that warning in mind since I read it long ago. But today I have failed. A slogan has brought me down. “Lesbian necromancers in space” is that slogan. I have toppled. I have fallen …
I’m guessing that the pitch for Catfish Lullaby, by A. C. Wise, was: imagine True Detective season one from the perspective of women and queer people of color. That’s certainly an intriguing premise as well as a welcome one, and I already know Wise is an exceptionally good writer from her short stories. Her work …