The Fires of Vengeance was everything I wanted in a sequel to such a thrilling & captivating first epic fantasy book. The action never slowed (no second book slump here), the characters and arcs were compelling, and the world continued to grow. 

Tau continues to be a fascinating main character – he’s fierce and determined and also so brash and impulsive. He’s never flat; his goals and thought patterns continue to shift and evolve as he learns more about the bigger scope of his world.

But the supporting characters? I think they delight me more. Tau’s sword family and all of their individual motivators and quirks. Tsoria has to be one of the most interesting characters I’ve come across. I’m desperate to learn more about her - and her relationship with her sister. The one-off chapters from different points of view were both illuminating and a nice break from Tau’s intense focus. 

The fight scenes continue to blow me away. The explosive action makes you feel as though you’re right in the thick of things: smelling the blood and rage and fear, twisting and turning with swordplay, and agonizing over each loss. 

It’s a story of resistance to oppression and cycle-breaking. Of fiery, formidable determination. Of sacrifice for leadership and consequences to societies and hierarchies created through violence.

I’m so ready for book three.

CW: death, gore, blood, grief, body horror, war, death (parent/child), murder, suicide, fire, torture, colonization, classism, genocide, animal cruelty/death, medical trauma

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Ha ha ha OKAY MELISSA BLAIR.

A Vicious Game is the third book in the Halfling Saga, and it was nearly impossible to put down.

This series grapples with SO much – addiction, healing, grief, trust, love, vulnerability, oppression, racism – but it also manages to have fun & to lovingly play with romantasy tropes and cheeky moments.

Without revealing anything, I was really impressed by how fleshed-out some of the supporting characters became in this segment. It was really a treat to get a fuller arc for some of my favorite players.

The found family moments warmed my heart, Keera continued to captivate me, and I really enjoyed the expansion of magic within this world. 

Now I’ve got to wait for book 4, and there is SO much simmering.

CW: murder, death, genocide, racism, colonization, war, torture, alcoholism, addiction, grief, panic attacks, self harm, fire, injury, sexual content

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(I received a free copy of this book; this is my honest review.)

The Rage of Dragons is an epic, bloody, captivating bit of fantasy.

We’re following Tau, who lives in a society that has been crafted exclusively around war – they’ve been in endless battles for hundreds of years against an enemy who vastly outnumber them. Those with Noble bloodlines are considered better fighters, and Gifted women have magic to bulk up warriors, disarm opponents, and even call down dragons.

Tau is painfully average, considered a Lesser and dreading leaving his first love to fight as a pawn for years. But everything changes when he witnesses a murder. He sets himself on a path to revenge, a path to become the best fighter of all time, a path that takes away his humanity. He’ll do whatever it takes to kill the three men who took away everything from him.

Tau is a formidable main character. He’s impulsive and overflowing with rage, and he struggles to see the bigger picture. It’s fascinating to live inside his head (and we do get brief chapters from other POVs) and easy to lean into his dream of vengeance. 

While the story had some predictable arcs - like Tau overcoming a whole lot of limits – I appreciated that it wasn’t exactly a ‘chosen one’ sort of narrative. Tau comes up against enemies he cannot face. He isn’t magically or conveniently saved from ruin. He’s exceptional, but he worked very hard to get there and all of his actions and sacrifices have consequences. The cost he pays to shift the boundaries of his world is devastatingly high. 

This book has to contain some of the BEST action and fight sequences I’ve ever read. Winter leans into the swordplay and gore and emotions that come alongside battle, and each moment was so engaging. I was really impressed, especially because I don’t always love long fight scenes. But here? I was hungry for more. 

Winter was raised in Zambia and says that it was the inspiration for the secondary world of The Rage of Dragons – we don’t get to experience a ton of the world or its nature because the characters are so focused on survival, but I loved the morsels of the land we did see. 

It’s a story of survival and revenge, of love and family, of hierarchy and xenophobia and injustice. It’s a story about cycles of violence and oppression, and how it feels to be stuck in that system and unable to imagine a way out. It’s a story about struggling to be moral within a society that makes goodness close to impossible.

It’s really good. And I’m ready for book two.

CW: death (parent/child), war, violence, gore, murder, grief, classism, body horror, colonization, xenophobia, fire, genocide, racism, rape, torture, self harm, panic attacks, excrement, vomit, sexual content

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Since She’s Been Gone is a nuanced dual-timeline psychological thriller, with a vulnerable look at addiction and recovery.

We follow Beans (Beatrice), a clinical psychologist who lost her mom as a teenager and recently lost her dad as well. She’s finally in a good place. After recovering from a severe eating disorder and a complicated first marriage, she’s in a happy relationship and has a stable job. But her world is turned upside down when a mysterious patient barges into her office claiming that Beans’ mom is alive … and that she needs her help.

As Beans investigates, she quickly gets wrapped up in a powerful & notorious family, one that runs an opioid drug company and seems to have eyes everywhere. She uncovers her mother’s complicated past as she ponders her own, and she has to forge her way forward without relapsing once more. 

It is partly a psychological thriller, but it more strongly leans into themes of family, resilience, and sacrifice. Beans is contemplating her relationship with her mother as she is getting ready to become a mother herself (to the 7-year-old daughter of her boyfriend). She’s grappling with passed down trauma and perhaps genetic predispositions to addiction, and parental love & sacrifice. Since She’s Been Gone asks: how well do you really know your parents? 

Beans is a very reliable narrator, which is kind of refreshing. She honestly & openly has to learn to love & fight for herself. There were very in depth details about Beans’ eating disorder, her treatment, her recovery, and her relapses. Please go into this book with care, as this can be upsetting and challenging to read.

The plot is split pretty evenly between the past and the present, and the present involves opioid addictions and some very convenient mystery solving. Beans is maybe a little too adept at getting people to talk and information falls into her hands so very simply. It’s definitely unrealistic.

And then this is paired with the eating disorder sections - which were deeply detailed and very realistic - which made for a bit of whiplash, even though they are clearly connected. The overwhelming clinical bits of info around opioid addiction and eating disorders sometimes stalled the plot as well.

On a separate note, if you’re interested in the topic of opioid abuse and powerful families profiting off of it, check out the nonfiction book Empire of Pain, which documents the Sackler family (who are definitely the inspiration for the fictional family in this novel).

There were some beautiful arcs by the end – I teared up more than once. There are some open threads that I had questions about, but overall it finished on a hopeful note.

I think this was a very powerful read, and though it had some debut stumbles, I would definitely recommend it.

CW: parent/child death, addiction, drug use, eating disorder, forced institutionalization, miscarriage, gaslighting, kidnapping, murder, car accident, cancer, exercise compulsion, grief, body shaming, fatphobia, mental illness, self harm, fatphobia

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(I received an advance reader copy of this book; this is my honest review.)

Jonny Appleseed takes us on an immersive nonlinear stream-of-consciousness journey, with a few overarching threads.

We’re following Jonny, a young Indigiqueer/Two-Spirit person forging his own path in the big city who suddenly learns that he has to come home to the Rez for his stepfather’s funeral. As he prepares to return, he reflects on his family, love, identity, and current life as a cybersex worker. 

As readers, we’re dropped right into Jonny’s life. I felt a profound sense of grief for his kokum (grandmother - who died while Jonny was away from home) and I also grieved the disconnection with Jonny once I finished the final page. 

Jonny takes us back through his childhood and young adulthood, framing moments that sparked his discovery that he is Two-Spirit, and uncovering the many facets of his sexuality. And now, as a sex worker, he has learned how to subtly take control, camouflaging himself for his clients while secretly struggling to survive.

He has a deep, powerful love for his kokum. He spends so much time reminiscing over their connection, and all the ways she was there for him and shaped him, and his grief over her passing. Through memorializing her, he also finds a softer place in his heart for his mother. 

Jonny is a mess. But he’s got a good heart and a good sense of humor, and he navigates messy relationships, poverty, complicated family dynamics, and life on his own with a poetic, charming, and often blunt voice. 

It reads almost like a memoir or a longform essay – and I know Whitehead has stated clearly that Jonny is not him – this is just a testament to Jonny’s excellent narrative voice and his character development.

I did find it a bit tricky to get into the flow of the novel at first, but once I picked up on Jonny’s rhythms I was happy to be along for the ride. My one other disappointment centered around Tias; I feel like we never fully got to know him (he was only really vulnerable in one of the final moments), and other supporting characters like Jonny’s mother & kokum & even Jordan felt much more fleshed out. 

CW: death, child abuse, drug use, addiction, pedophilia, homophobia, racism, animal death, colonization, transphobia, fatphobia, infidelity, mental illness, terminal illness, sex work, bullying, vomit, sexual content

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Just Mercy is a hard read. These stories - often bleak and enraging – will cling to you. 

But Bryan Stevenson has a beautiful voice, and he writes with care & hope. He shares honestly about moments of doubt & failure, but you’ll close the book knowing that everything is worth the fight. 

Bryan Stevenson founded the Equal Justice Initiative as a young lawyer – it’s a nonprofit based in Alabama with an initial focus on defending those with death sentences. As EJI grows, so does its reach: Stevenson and his partners challenge life sentences for children and all sorts of wrongful and unfair convictions, and bring current impacts of racism to light in new ways. 

This book highlights Walter McMillan - an innocent man given a death sentence - but branches out to include a myriad of cases as well as highlight the overarching pain of mass incarceration. 

I felt as though I got to know so many of these people – the incarcerated folks whom Stevenson worked so hard to protect and offer dignity to, their anguished yet beyond compassionate family members, the earnest and emotionally drained lawyers, the contemptuous prosecutors and judges, and so on. 

EJI is always drowning in casework, and there is a never ending stream of people coming through their door in desperate need of help. The system is cruel to everyone, but especially to poor people; people of color; disabled people; mentally ill people; and all their intersections.

One of the central people discussed is McMillan, an innocent man who was treated unfairly at every turn. It’s a shocking and compelling case, and it’s agonizing to read about all the intentional abuses of America’s legal and police systems.

But what I found more striking were the calls for mercy for those incarcerated people who did do what they were accused of. “Do we deserve to kill?” he asks. (I think not.) 

This is a book filled with compassion, grace, resilience, and power. 

CW: racism, execution, death, murder, police brutality, slurs, torture, confinement, guns, rape, abuse in all forms, ableism, drug use & addiction, pregnancy, miscarriage, mental illness, panic attacks, psychosis, self harm, suicide, pedophilia, misogyny, vomit, excrement, infidelity

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The Blue, Beautiful World was inventive, with whispers of intriguing themes and a few characters who pulled me in, but it ultimately felt quite shallow.

The first segment of the book follows pop superstar Owen (one name only), who has taken Earth by storm, but has a secret gravitational pull that allows him to be an joyous influencer or a controlling dictator. There’s a  sudden time jump after the first 80 pages to then follow a group of young representatives preparing for (what they believe is) the first contact with alien societies.

But this is not an unnerving tale of first contact as the marketing suggests – it is a smattering of events amidst a space opera series.

There was no indication that this was part of a series until I opened Goodreads and saw the parentheses. Nothing in the blurb, nothing on the book itself, nothing in the email that offered me an early copy. So that was very challenging. I’m sure that I was missing information that would have made this a fuller read, but I generally wasn’t confused.

You are, however, shoved right in without first giving you a reason to care about these other worlds, characters, and conflicts. And each transition was more jarring than the last.

With the second segment of the book, there’s a strange amount of dramatic irony (the council members believe they are working on hypothetical situations; we know from the first part that aliens have been in contact for many years already) that wipes away all the tension. We’re waiting for them to catch up, and when they finally do the book ends almost immediately.

There were interesting concepts, but I didn’t feel as though they were given enough gravity. Far too much content is covered in only 250 or so pages. I’m into the complexity, into the giant cast of characters, and into the themes that the space opera touched on, but I ended the book feeling unsure why this story was told and if there was a bigger picture. 

CW: parent death, colonization, grief, suicidal thoughts, war, xenophobia, vomit

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(I received an advance reader copy of this book; this is my honest review.)

Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart does indeed live up to the title: these stories will tag along behind you like ghosts, altering you ever so slightly as they tuck themselves into your ribcage.

They’re delightfully bizarre. These are tales you would hear in an old tavern or whispered down a chain of cleverly cruel young girls (with a hint of witchiness) or hidden in the pages of a dusty old book found at the back of your grandmother’s shelf. They feel familiar - like old bits of folklore - but are also devastatingly new.

Each story investigates our contradictions, slipping into the surreal to make sense of our present reality. They’re about loss and love, and monstrosity, and sacrifice, and rage. 

The prose is delicious. And the tone between stories shifts in an always-intriguing way. Sometimes it’s witty, aloof and winking at you with knowledge of the future. Sometimes it’s serious, agonizing over the fates of the characters. Many times it lingers between the two.

The stories include a warning of magically violent young women and their initiation of the new girl, an epistolary tale involving a friend’s betrayal and a peculiar sheepskin, a young woman who hollows herself out for a man and reshapes herself to his liking, and the titular bestiary which has a lot going on beneath its initial descriptions. 

There were one or two stories that didn’t grasp me in quite the same way, but that’s how collections always go for me. And the bulk of this grimoire (it feels like a grimoire, doesn’t it?) will sit with me for a very long time. 

CW: child death, murder, animal cruelty/death, war, body horror, blood, gore, self harm, bestiality, infidelity, drugs, vomit

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(I received an advance reader copy of this book; this is my honest review.)

Familia is a twisty mystery that navigates family (both blood & chosen), sacrifice, and redemption.

Twenty-five years ago, Isabella’s baby sister Marianna disappeared in Puerto Rico. Now Isabella lives with the pain of missing her every day, though she’s finally found stability in a loving relationship and passion through her art. She’s never given up though, and checks DNA websites each day in the hopes of stumbling across Marianna once again.

Enter Gabby, a fact checker for a well known magazine in New York. She’s used to verifying truths, until a genealogy test she took for work tells her something absolutely impossible: she has a sister in Puerto Rico. Gabby is convinced there’s an error in the results, but she cautiously heads to Puerto Rico to figure out which story is the truth.

With jumps between past and present, the two young women figure out the meaning of family, truth, and justice.

It’s a well-written and fast-moving piece. I enjoyed the questions the storytelling raised, though I often thought different arcs and scenes wrapped up a little too smoothly. For a narrative that interrogated fact versus truth, I would have loved a little more grayness; open endings; general messiness. 

There’s a deep love for family here, and for family of all kinds. We see the care and strength of chosen family, and the bonds of blood family, even when they are unexpected. And sisterhood … Isabella fights for her lost sister through grief and anger and loving frustration. 

Familia also asks questions about justice, sacrifice, and redemption. Many parents make sacrifices for their children – but if those sacrifices have other consequences, when do the ends justify the means? And redemption – who can find redemption; can some people never be redeemed? Is there a point where you can shrug off the past, let go of what is fact or what is ‘truth’, and live with what is? 

It’s definitely complicated, and I was aching for a bit more of an overarching care for community. I love dark and gritty reads, but I’m also conscious of the power of stereotypes enacted over and over again in storytelling and how people can be painted in broad strokes. I’m not sure we got enough of a full view of Puerto Rico and its people - beyond “watch out, Gabby” / this area is unsafe / everyone is up to something / you’re surrounded by criminals.. And it’s too bad, because Gabby really needed more opportunities for growth. She’s sheltered and privileged and doesn’t fully consider the lives she is interrogating for her articles; traveling the island and meeting more community members might have helped her expand her perspective.

CW: murder, death of parent, child abuse, addiction, alcoholism, rape, toxic relationship, trafficking, kidnapping, grief, fire

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(I received an advance reader copy of this book; this is my honest review.)

The List set out to be a thought-provoking read on internet culture, sexual violence, and romantic partnerships – but ultimately, it felt to me like such clumsy storytelling that it ended up erasing any potential impact.

Ola & her fiancé Michael are #BlackCoupleGoals all over Instagram, and she couldn’t be more ready for the big day. Until one morning, an anonymous account drops The List: a crowdsourced collection of men in media who have been accused of various forms of abuse. Ola would typically be the first to share - and maybe even write a headlining article through her feminist journalist job at Womxxxn - but this time, it’s a bit different. Because Michael is named.

I think the book hops all over the place without a clearly directed message – online toxicity, racism, sexism, homophobia, accusations and their impact on both parties, how quickly things spread in online spaces, performative activism, and so on. It uses a lot of buzzy language, but isn’t sharp enough to do anything with the heavy topics it addresses.

The language was so aggressively modern & quippy that it was a bit hard to read at times. Many characters were flat stereotypes with nothing to make them seem like fleshed-out humans.

The two leads made nauseatingly poor decisions, and while their inner thoughts were spiraling, I didn’t feel like either had any growth. Honestly, most of the scenes made me sick to my stomach – I didn’t understand why we were witnessing page after page of horrifying behavior without any interesting narrative framing or redemption. The ending was deeply disappointing. 

I also didn’t fully believe either Ola or Michael acted like influencers. Their grasp on social media was tenuous at best (and still their wedding was filled with brand deals?), they had little to no care or awareness of how they presented themselves, and it seemed like the viral post was only tossed in so they would have somewhere to fall from. It would have been way more interesting to me if they were full-blown influencers, with the knowledge of the internet and the sneakiness of curated content and lifestyle that comes alongside that. 

I hate to say this, but it almost comes across as a rape apologist story … and I’m sure the intent was far from that. Such an important topic needs to be handled with skill (and care for real life survivors).

CW: rape, sexual assault/harassment, suicide, misogyny, sexism, homophobia, racism, alcoholism, infidelity, bullying, toxic relationship, self harm, gaslighting, death, emotional abuse, pedophilia, panic attacks, car accident

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(I received a free copy of this book; this is my honest review.)