Bisou is a girl who holds herself apart. She’s friendly but has no real friends, except now, perhaps, for her sweet and loving boyfriend James. She would be happy to just spend time with him and her grandmother indefinitely, but the world intrudes: a boy at her school is found dead in the woods. His …
Purists beware: Prosper’s Demon, by K. J. Parker, is not a tale of good versus evil. This is mostly a tale of not-as-bad and maybe-worse fighting it out, ostensibly for a greater purpose, but maybe just in a never-ending cycle of retribution. But as a world champion player of Petty Petty Princess, I can say …
When you think of orcs and wizards, chances are you’re thinking of some variation of Saruman with his nameless minions, the wizard in control, the orc eager to be told what to do. Standard, right? Well, not anymore. A.K. Larkwood takes that concept, runs with it for a bit, and then utterly obliterates it in …
The Wells of Sorcery is the trilogy everybody should be talking about. But the trouble with things published in January is that they’re good for buying with Christmas gift cards, but bad for making it on to best-of lists. Which is a shame, since Ship of Smoke and Steel, the first installment, was a rollicking …
Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series has been brilliant from start to finish, book to book, and she’s so prolific that I’m running out of ways to encourage people to read it. Would threats work? Read this book or your life will be just so much emptier. There will be a sorrow you’ll only be able …
Sigourney Rose is a survivor. Not only does she survive the massacre of her family as a child, but she ends up ruling over people dark skinned people who look just like her. Early on in these pages, the reader experiences her making the hard choices that inspire no love from her people. After an …
YA romance usually leaves me yawning, but I was utterly spellbound by the beautiful, tender story at the heart of Julie C. Dao’s Song of the Crimson Flower. The two leads, Bao and Lan, won me over almost immediately with their good hearts and their wonderful story. Bao is an orphan who has found an …
Note: Jenn Lyons’s first book Ruin of Kings was such a hit with Geekly readers that we wanted to do even more to showcase her second book, The Name of All Things. And as Josh MacDougall pointed out, there are two narrators for this second volume, so what better than two reviews and two extras–an …
Note: Jenn Lyons’s first book Ruin of Kings was such a hit with Geekly readers that we wanted to do even more to showcase her second book, The Name of All Things. And as Josh MacDougall pointed out, there are two narrators for this second volume, so what better than two reviews and two extras–an …
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 …