Wide-ranging, masterfully edited collection of dragon tales by some of today's best sci-fi/fantasy writers and poets. With streaks of melancholy and humor, with pockets of charm and horror, these wildly different stories demonstrate the powerful position dragons have in our imaginative worlds — and the creativity they engender.

My thanks to #NetGalley and Harper Voyager for a digital ARC.

This is my first taste of the Geekarella books and universe, and it was just okay for me. The fandom stuff is fun and that part of the world feels well built out and detailed, but our main characters left me wanting more. It seems like fans of the series should be pleased though — there are cameos and references throughout that a new reader can detect and appreciate but not with the deeper understanding and enthusiasm of a fan.

Two similar series of book thefts at the New York Public Library at the beginning and the end of the 20th century lay the mystery framework for this dual timeline historical fiction, but the heart of the novel is in the strained, broken, healed, and healing relationships at both ends of this tale.

It isn't a story that is completely satisfying, but that's a testament to Davis's ability to let messy human lives be messy, and to let her readers sit with that. She's an established and talented author who excels at realistic, complicated, historically grounded women as main characters in beautifully realized settings. One reviewer notes that the New York Public Library is "practically a third protagonist," and I agree. It was a distinct pleasure to read about the library, the apartment deep inside where the superintendent's family used to live, and the collections and procedures. If the tale is tinged with sadness, it's the sort that haunts every grand, enduring public building and felt particularly appropriate.

Content notes: limiting and dehumanizing gender roles, runaway and foster care system, off-screen suicide, death of a parent, child endangerment, off-screen London blitz/bombing