Harrow The Ninth is deeply necromantic and gorgeous; full of the most beautiful body horror with a casual familiarity with death, the dead, and those who refuse to die. For everyone who read GTN and wants to be more confused, for longer, with even more viscera.

First and foremost: If you made it to the end of Gideon The Ninth, and you liked it, you’ll like Harrow The Ninth. If you haven’t read Gideon The Ninth, go do that (or at least read our review) and then come back, this will be here when you return. If you have a phobia of skeletons, viscera, blood, gore, or the frequent removal and rebuilding of bodies... don't read it, it's really okay if this one isn't for you (but I hope for your sake it is, because it's fantastic). It would be deeply disturbing to anyone who has an abiding and genuine fear of such things, so please use your discretion.

Now that you’re here: Harrow The Ninth is perfect for anyone who read Gideon The Ninth and said to themselves, "I would like to spend longer not knowing what's happening but having a great time." Every phrase I want to use to describe this book reminds me of how people who have done drugs talk about how they feel. I was disconcerted frequently, confused generally, and loving every minute of it even though I didn't know what was going on (and clearly wasn't supposed to). It felt good to read, the prose had a visceral quality (both in terms of the syllabic density and its propensity to describe actual viscera). About halfway through I had a guess at what might be going on (and I was only partially right), it wasn't until 70%-80% of the way through that I reached the explanation and truly understood. But that turning point where I finally got what was happening, wow, I think it was an even greater emotional payoff for me than when I finally understood what was happening in Gideon.

As for my usual book two check for series of at least three books (as this is a trilogy): This wraps up several things from the previous book (but you don't really understand how until very far in). There is an entire storyline which only is within this book, in one way, but also transcends it and encompasses the first book in even more bizarre ways, so... I don't know whether this qualifies as having a storyline unique to this book, I really don't know. I think there is a major thing which is introduced and resolved wholly within this book, but with how trippy these books are it's totally possible that I'll re-read Gideon and realize it was actually begun there. This definitely leaves some major things to be addressed in the third book, which is good. The POV character did change, and the voice is very distinct from the previous narrator, oh yes. Lastly, this is a bizarre case where the first 60% of the book might actually be less confusing if the reader had not read the first book. I don't recommend picking up this one as your starting point, since the conclusion will make absolutely no sense without having read Harrow, but since this is a trilogy and not a long-running series this criterion isn't super important. TLDR: This book defies my usual book two checks and that feels appropriate. It's a great continuation while also having plenty to hold its own, and the narrator feels distinct from the first book's narrator. This makes me need the sequel as soon as I can get it.

*I received a free review copy in exchange for an honest review of this book. 

The Midnight Bargain is devastating and witty, full of carefully considered deals, social wrangling, friendship, sorcery, and romance. It's also acquainted with dread, with impending doom of a deeply personal kind, knowing that loved ones are shadows of all they could be.

I really like the dynamic between the MC and the non-POV major characters. She has different relationships with each of them, and in a book which is driver by conversation and socialization, that's really important. I love witty banter, tense interpersonal relationships, navigating social politics for material (and marital) stakes, it's done so well here. There's an absolutely devastating scene which revolves around flower arrangements... I'm in awe. This was a really fun book to read, I loved having strong characters with clashing motivations and often incompatible goals, all trying to get what they want, sometimes assisting and sometimes impeding each other. It's a kind of thrilling story which is gripping despite not having a ton of action (but not quite none).

This book does for discussions of sexism in a magical aristocratic setting what the The Kingston Cycle does for classism in the same. The sexism isn't anything really unusual, it just has a very specific and horrific shape that makes sense to have come out of this particular fictional world. The worldbuilding is great, and the characters (even the somewhat loathsome ones) have room to grow from where they were when the story began. I especially liked the dynamic between the MC and her younger sister, the way she thinks of her changes throughout the story in a way that (speaking as someone with both older and younger siblings) felt natural and made sense based on their relationship at the start of the story. Thinking back on it, that's definitely something that was done really well here, characters grow within the story and their relationships with each other change either as a driver of that growth or in reaction to it, depending on the character.

I like this one a lot. I feel content with it as a stand-alone novel, I think any potential sequel would need to follow different protagonists. The ending was really satisfying and I feel good about how everything wrapped up.

*I received a free review copy in exchange for an honest review of this book. 

Winter Masquerade is a bizarre and wonderful fever dream of a story, a magical mystery tale running on dream logic, punctuated by nightmares; speaking slantwise of slowly coming out from gaslighting, falling out of love, perhaps realizing it was never love at all.

It conveys how it feels to slowly realize that everything is wrong, that it's okay to not be okay, and how hard it can be to try and make a change. This runs on witty banter and dream logic; that's a style which I specifically enjoy, and this is a particularly concentrated version of that type. The story has a recognizable kind of structure, a narrative style which mimics how dreams feel when you try to remember them; the pieces connected so beautifully while you were asleep, but upon waking they feel disparate and discordant. This mimics how it can feel to realize that things are a little bit wrong, a little bit broken. That maybe what you thought was “good enough” is actually neither “enough” nor “good”. That air of wrongness permeates this fantasy, hinting towards the reality which undergirds it. It gradually becomes more overt as the MC strains to figure out how to feel and what to do about it when this dream finally ends.

Fascinating and ruthless, Jade City is a slow-burning, deftly-politicking fantasy which brings you 'round to meet new friends, then coyly remarks that none of them are safe; the best you can hope for is that when your darling dies you'll bury them with their Jade.

I love this book, I love the characters, the setting is great... If you've read very many of my reviews you probably know I love interpersonal politics and heists... and this has all of that, all the time. Lots of discussions, weighing of actions, politicking, and then blades. There's betrayal and subterfuge, a few heists, some capers and a very high body count. Seriously, like, a lot of people die by the end of this (and I suspect even more will die in the sequel, Jade War). For me the two biggest strengths in this book are the world-building and characterization. There are a lot of named characters, but the book is very good at directing attention to minimize the number of names the reader really needs to retain, while still realistically portraying large networks run by a few powerful families. I thought I knew who my favorite character was, but then someone else started giving them a run for their money in my affections and I look forward to seeing how they get on in the sequel.

Sometimes stories introduce their readers to a new (to them) setting by including a character who is also new. Others just drop you in and expect you to keep up. This book had a wonderful blend of both, not by having a character who was wholly new to the setting, but one who was returning after an absence spent in a setting implied to be very much like the real modern world. It also included some who were continually present, but marginalized in different ways from each other. The combination of them meant that different people were naturally able to comment on or explain different parts of the setting and give different views on the principal players involved, without it ever feeling like an infodump. It took me a little bit to get into it because there was a lot of world to build, but once it got going I couldn't read anything else until I was done.

One of the very clever things this book did to center the reader fully in the world was to repurpose various phrases in English which normally have different (sometimes negative) meanings, by recontextualizing them in a fictional country which is organized around this highly prized and quasi-magical substance, Jade. Phrases related to being green are turned from being an indication of new-ness or weakness into expressions indicating strength, prowess, and power. To be "cut" has a new, Jade-specific and differently positive meaning, etc. Early on it made me pause to reconfigure my expectations of these words, but because the context was clear and these new meanings were unmistakable it hastened a kind of immersion into this new world, and that new world is fantastic. 

 A story of the slow slide into a horrible situation, beginning with tiny misgivings and growing into something traumatic and terrible. Brilliantly paced, and told with immense care for its readers, Grown should be the next book you read. Take care of yourselves.

There is so much care for the reader in how this book is structured, the wording used, the way the story unfolds... everything comes together to make crystal clear what happened without dragging the reader through every single terrible thing that happens. The opening chapter is brilliant, it establishes the stakes and her cognitive dissonance. Beginning with a snapshot of the way the "relationship" ends was an excellent choice because it contextualizes the main story in a really important way. This book is about a man using his power to control and abuse a teenage girl, it's not a romance, it's not a love story; and while I knew that going in, I'm very pleased with the way the book makes that clear from the start, even in the part of the story where things haven't gotten bad yet. I say "yet", but really it was bad as soon as he told her to keep their text messages a secret (which is almost as soon as they meet). 

This was such a fantastic use of the "unreliable narrator" trope because, in my opinion, it really encapsulates the difference between being unreliable and just not being believed, which is (unfortunately) a conversation that is all too common in situations where powerful men abuse vulnerable women. Other gender combinations are possible in abusive situations, but there's a particular societal vitriol for this very common scenario; simultaneously acting like it's so common it's not worth being worried about (e.g. "what else did they think would happen?"), and like it's so rare that it couldn't possibly be what's really happening in any individual instance (e.g. "that person is so great, they couldn't possibly be an abuser"). 

I love everything about this book except that we live in a world where it's relevant, and that just makes this even more important to read.CW for emotional abuse, sexual abuse, rape, assault, child abuse, kidnapping, addiction to opioids, and death. 

A fast-paced and engaging fantasy,  A Song of Wraiths and Ruin is good from the first page to the last. High stakes oaths, fantastic characters with mutually incompatible goals, and the creeping dread of never quite being enough for what everyone expects of you.

This book flew by for me, I sat down to read just a bit to check it out and then devoured it just a couple of days. It does an amazing job of establishing two compelling protagonists with incompatible goals and making you want them both to succeed. The world is rich with backstory and detail without ever feeling overwhelming, and it so perfectly handled the delicate balance of providing a satisfying ending while making me invested in the sequel. I love everything it did and I really want to know what happens next. 

When I say they have incompatible goals, I mean that they literally can't both succeed (given the setup of the book) and I want so badly for them to both get what they want. Every time it switched perspectives I was fully into their mind and rooting for them, then rooting just as hard for the other protagonist when it switched back. Having made it to the end, I think I finally picked one I prefer, but it took until the final pages for me to decide (and I suspect the sequel will shake it up all over again). Part of what makes the worldbuilding so good is that it uses the characters' very different backgrounds to highlight different bits of history and the setting, using their different perspectives to talk about overlapping topics in distinct ways over the course of the book.

There are nuanced portrayals of panic and fear (including at least one panic attack) in a way that conveys what the characters are going through without just resorting to ideation. It conveys how terror feels while still leaving enough space and care to generally avoid passing that fear along. Instances of fear are often paired with one or more characters demonstrating ways that they try to cope, most of them were recognizable to me as real ways to deal with panic attacks. I love how much care went into this, especially in a YA novel. It's not a panic attack tutorial, it's a realistic portrayal of how a fictional character deals with a real-world problem, as well as being an opportunity to learn more about the character. It's a great scene in its own right, but it had the added weight of making me feel seen in a small but very welcome way.

The world building is great, the characters are great. I'm definitely looking forward to the sequel, I need to know how the larger story ends.

*I received a free review copy in exchange for an honest review of this book. 

Crescent Moons is a fun and schlocky detective story with a superhero twist and a lot of great wordplay. It has a generally light vibe after a shockingly tragic start.

The banter just feels good to read for much of the book. The minor characters have distinct rapports with the MC and the conversations convey a lot about everyone in a pretty short amount of time. There's some infodumping but not a ton, it's spread out and usually prompted by something relevant happening so it fits in pretty naturally with the dialogue and action. I like the premise and most of how it turned out, watching to see the MC try and disentangle himself from the slowly more and more convoluted mess was very enjoyable.

There's a brief sex scene about halfway through that feels pretty awkward but also fits the MC. It's described more like what sex is, physically, rather than how it feels emotionally, but the narration around the scene itself establishes a playful and intimate dynamic between the characters. It's very consistent with the MCs characterization in the rest of the book, and I got to know one of the minor characters a lot better through the events surrounding the scene.

The narrative style captures the schlocky detective vibe really well, and for most of the book it feels really fun. My big caveat is that there's a pretty steady stream of low-key sexism that seemed like it was going to be examined or deconstructed, but that never quite happened. It's possible that the main character is going to learn some tough lessons in the next book, but I don't know if there's quite enough in this first one to really foreshadow that, if it's coming at all. 

TLDR: It feels like a noir detective novel with a modern (and very welcome) flair. It fits solidly in that genre, but I wish this update had completely ditched the sexism while it was adding the superheroes.

*I received a free review copy in exchange for an honest review of this book. 

Midnight Angel is short and sweet, laced with the supernatural but mostly about infatuation, dating, and the awkwardness of a declined holiday party invitation. Good for when you want to feel a little bit wistful and hopeful at the same time. 

Legendborn reckons with deep grief, processing personal and generational trauma. It's also an adventure, a discovery, with exhilarating battles and heart-pounding danger. A dizzying blend between long-needed closure and still-bleeding edges; soothing and deeply satisfying.

As a retelling, I love it. It takes the Arthurian mythos and brings it into the modern era in a way that pulls it through the intervening years, the generations. It contextualizes the history that must have happened in order to arrive at the present moment with an incredibly white and monied secret magical legacy intact. As a new novel that builds a fantastic world on the bones of our own, stirring legends and history together and fixing them into a new form, I love it even more. 

The characters are great. There are some world-building sections that tend a bit towards info-dumps early on because there's a lot to explain, but the way they're conveyed builds a sense of just how much information the MC is trying to learn and act on in a very short amount of time for her own survival. I love long nerdy explanations of minutiae, especially of magic systems in fantasy, and this has just enough of that to make me happy without it ever feeling too dense. They don't slow the story down and they helped with immersion in the world. The later parts of the book feel lighter and move faster once those explanations are out of the way, but I definitely want to re-read to catch even more now that I know the ending.

Partway through reading this I said that in order for something to be my perfect book it would need to be a retelling with a heist, or a heist that added space or magic. Dear audience, fellow lovers of heists and heist-adjacent tropes. This book has a heisty scene. If you don't care about heists, that scene does a bunch of great character-work and is fantastic on other merits. But I have found my retelling with a heist, and so I have an extra thing to be happy about in this book.

I've barely finished reading and I already need more. The narrative is layered, with things I can tell will be fascinating in a re-read whenever I get the chance. The only thing I want that I didn't get is more book, I didn't want this to end, but a sequel has been planned and so I'll just have to wait. 

Into the Drowning Deep is a bloody brilliant horror novel that cares deeply about every character it kills. Fantastically paced, with a scientific approach to monsters. It illustrates in gory detail how hubris and ableism can make a nightmare scenario even worse. 

The way dread and horror slowly is built, even before many of the characters have a concrete reason to worry, is fantastic. Many of the early chapters end with just a few plot-specific lines which indicate that something small has gone wrong in a way that many characters don't know yet. Since the reader also doesn't know yet why it's a problem, the way its included builds a non-specific anxiety that fits the book's main genre (horror) perfectly.

The balance between primary and secondary characters is well managed for a book with such a potentially large cast, as most of it takes place on a ship with over a hundred scientists and researchers but narrows the story's focus to a few very memorable people. Then, once the slaughter kicks off, it retains its attention on the characters. Some of them die because they make poor decisions but they're decisions which completely fit their personalities, and by that point we know them well enough to understand how they were doomed. 

Be aware that this book has zero aftercare, there's almost nothing between the final resolution of the danger and the end of the book. Given this book's well-deserved place as a horror novel I don't see this as a problem. I don't know what any surviving characters could have said after all that horror and death that wouldn't feel trite, so it definitely works for the book (and I'll seek my aftercare in reading something a bit happier next). 

As much as I love this author's writing I think I'll stick to her works under Seanan McGuire rather than Mira Grant after this, horror just isn't my genre, I think I prefer creature features. However, given that I found myself reading it, this was fantastic and I definitely recommend it to anyone who likes horror.