For about half of the book, I was very much here for the romance. Shane and Marguerite didn’t seem all that compatible to me, but also had undeniable chemistry, and I was really interested to see how this “opposites attract scenario“ was going to play out. My problem was that just as things started getting interesting, it was like the book merely leaped over the best parts and carried on, leaving me confused. I legit didn’t understand how exactly lust turned to love here. Like, there were hints at that journey starting, and then we were suddenly at the destination? And then there was that scene in the later half with a single line that felt like it existed to gut me—

“I’m less broken when I’m around you“

—but it didn’t, *because* some crucial bits of getting there were missing. That was honestly so disappointing, because I was so, so here for these two.

But! That disappointment aside, I loved plenty of other aspects of the book so much??? Like, seriously, I kept taking breaks because I didn’t want it to end too soon. The characters are all so good, the prose is T. Kingfisher at her best, the adventure went to such exciting places, and the worldbuilding! It expanded in the most interesting ways, and I can’t wait to see how things develop from here. I’m a bit sad that the book didn’t fully pick up where the previous installment left off with the overarching plot, but it also kind of did, in away? It’s pretty obvious that the lore and the developments we’re getting here are all a huge part of that journey, and it’s all so exciting.

Speaking of the book as part of a larger series: I loved seeing glimpses/hearing about of the paladins who were the MCs in past novels. All these guys have super similar character arcs and trauma, but getting to envision them all alongside each other when they were all namedropped early on kind of helped me draw the lines and focus on the differences. Which in turn made me appreciate Shane more as his own character. He has such a great arc here, by the way, and such a fitting resolution to it. In the late part of the book, I was so, so worried for him, and then so happy for where he ended up. 

Also, the women paladins getting extra screen time? Yay! I absolutely loved Wren, though I feel like she deserved a lot more than the narrative gave her. Like, seriously, having to spend a huge chunk of the story playing the part of a girly girl and feeling lacking because that’s not her, and then when one thing that felt good on a personal level came out of the deception, it turned out to be… not good at all? Please give Wren all the happiness to make up for this. And Judith, what is even her deal? I am so curious about Judith, you all have no idea. Here’s hoping all the mystery around her pays off properly in the future.

Well, this has been… a lot of bees! :D Definitely not complaining: I love bees, and it’s been interesting to learn more about them and to compare what I know about modern beekeeping to the realities of the 18th century. And the bees do contribute a whole damn lot to the plot and the characterization. Some of the scenes where Penelope interacts with the hives are my favorite—it’s like she establishes a special relationship with every bee she meets, and it adds to her loveliness as a person. Not to mention all the other beekeepers showing up on the pages, each a great character. And there were just so many scenes, big and small, set around hives and swarms and leading to all sorts of interactions, humorous or emotional or poignant, depending on the point of the plot. Still, there were also sections of the book that kind of felt like a lecture on beekeeping rather than a fiction book, and that kind of took me out of the story a little.

The historical backdrop left me with a similar impression: extremely interesting, extremely well-researched, but sometimes overshadowing the plot. I really, really loved how grounded the book is in the time it’s set in, and how it focuses on the impact the big politics have on the lives of the most common of folks. There’s also a lot of thoughtful discussion on the specific realities of the time for women, queer people, people of the lower class, and more. I tend to love this kind of thing a lot in historical romances, and this approach was part of what absolutely charmed me about the first installment of this series. Here, for the most part, it also adds greatly to the reading experience, but there were a few spots where the fiction felt like it threatened to morph into a history book. The balance was just a tad off here and there, just like with beekeeping.

Outside of those instances where the balance was lacking, I really, really loved this. The romance is such a slow burn, and so well done, with both characters being somewhat older women with histories that have shaped them. I loved that Agatha’s past wasn’t discarded in any way—she loved her husband, she grieved him, and now in the book she gets a new chance at happiness with Penelope. Who is, once again, an absolute charmer and an absolute favorite of mine, the kind of character who feels like a friend. I very much enjoyed the overall slice-of-lifeness of it, with the close-knit small town community, the ballads at the tavern, the main characters’ respective jobs, the long conversations. Despite the complicated subjects, the story felt so sweet and comforting—I’m glad I finally got around to reading it.

I suppose this was a nice bedtime story to listen to for a few nights. My main issue with the book is that all the parts I liked had nothing to do with romance, and this is supposed to be a romance story. The romantic storyline honestly was ridiculous and kind of cringy. So much internet stalking on both sides, and pretty much actual stalking on Matt’s, and the entire thing with special fate connection was so contrived. It’s a retelling of Sleepless in Seattle, so it wasn’t unexpected that the story would be not so much about the relationship as about the two of them getting the courage to give it a try, but the specific way it was handled just didn’t work for me.

I did very much like Matt’s storyline that was independent from the romance. It felt a bit rushed because of the constraints of the length, no doubt, but there was a lot of promising stuff there. The relationships within the family in the aftermath of Matt’s parents’ divorce, his own obvious quarter-life crisis, sorting through all the components of his life trying to figure out what he needs, what he wants, and what he would rather do without—nothing revolutionary, but it sure had soul, and I wanted to keep digging into all those family situations. The whole storyline about getting unhealthily obsessed with some stranger online would have actually played really well into that… if only it got resolved differently. As in, with Matt figuring out that this whole thing isn’t super reasonable and maybe he should look for love in real life. That one red herring meet-cute from chapter 1 could have made a reappearance, idk.

Hugo’s storyline wasn’t as compelling for me, despite him being super nice and having an awesome relationship with his daughter and me generally being very into stories about overcoming grief. I think a lot of how it was handled was a bit too saccharine, although there was definite potential. Again though, it felt more like a self-contained story of a middle-aged man dealing with loneliness rather than half of a romance story. 

The book definitely gets extra points for the doggo. The Instagram-famous doggo was adorable, though I really disliked the way Matt treated him early on. Not even the whole “too many photosets and other obligations“ thing—that one was kind of understandable and more a comment on the capitalism of at all. But seriously, if your dog is displaying signs of indigestion and meteorism? You’re not being good to them by treating them to half of your ice cream! You should take them to a vet and see what kind of diet and potentially medication they need!

Looking back, I knew from the get go that this was a book about slavery set in the confines of an inescapable generation ship. I shouldn’t be at all surprised at how dark this got. Still, somehow, I was completely unprepared for the sheer brutality of this setting, and yet barely able to put the book down. Dark as fuck, yes, but so compelling.

I think a big part of the impact was the approach the author took to describing the traumatic events faced by the characters. Only rarely do the events themselves get the spotlight. For the most part, the focus is either on the build up to them, or the aftermath, or on occasion, something is described in a few sparing, detailless sentences that focus on the utter mundanity of things that shouldn’t be happening to people at all. Altogether it creates a truly chilling effect.

What I found the most striking were all the human connections forming in this utter darkness, all these people figuring out ways to be kind to each other, to learn, to find the strength for another day. Aster, Theo, Giselle, Melusine are all going to live rent-free in my head for a while now, I’m sure. Especially Aster. I loved her so much. She’s clearly some type of neurodivergent and her way of interacting with the world was so interesting to me. I’ve seen reviews saying she didn’t form deep connections because of her unemotional disposition, but I disagree with it a lot—I feel like the connections were very much there, just processed and expressed differently than is common for neurotypical individuals.

Despite all the feelings and thoughts the book made me experience, I do have some half-complaints, mostly about the pacing: I felt like the story took a long while to start going anywhere, other than just being a snapshot of an oppressive, claustrophobic dystopia, but then the ending was rushed. It’s a bit like the book started as a character/situation study and then decided to develop a stronger plot a tad too late. That lack of balance didn’t take away from the powerful delivery of the themes, but it did made the narrative harder to process.

I feel like perhaps this was too litfic for my tastes, in the sense that the whole book, despite encompassing quite a long time, read like one big monologue and I was left with a distinct sense that nothing really happened over the 200+ pages. Objectively speaking, though, there were a lot of events. The MC’s father died. Her mother moved from China to America and reached out for a reconnection. An entire pandemic started. And yet the MC merely drifted through all of this, seemingly trying to stay as unaffected as possible. She pretty much only cared about doing her job in intensive care, preferably by interacting with machines and not with the human beings, and then doing her job again the next day, and didn’t even know what to do with herself on her days off. It was like life just happened her against her wishes and she would be content if life just please stopped. All the connections she builds are circumstantional and, again, just happen to her: the family she’s born into, the coworkers she happens to share her days with, the people living in the same apartment block as she. Which, combined with the overall structure and the unusual punctuation (specifically lack of quotation marks for dialogue), made it rather hard for me to get immersed.

Despite that, there were still some interesting poignant moments and engaging reflection. While I couldn’t quite connect with Joan at any point of the story, I did enjoy reading about some of her interactions with her mother, and her backstory of finding belonging in the word of medicine because it gave her a box to fit into kind of struck a chord. Some of the reminiscing about racial issues, patriarchal stereotypes, and the problems that arise on the intersection of those was quite thought-provoking. Amidst all the detachment, there were moments of actual well-depicted grief. A lot of the side characters were as fleshed out as they could be while seen through the eyes of someone who struggles to interact with them, and on an intellectual level, I actually appreciated the creative decision of witnessing events transpire through the eyes of someone who’d rather just be left alone. I just wish there was more of a… character arc? More of a narrative direction? A definite ending for all of this to build up to? But I guess this all might be just my struggles with the genre itself.

This was a really interesting memoir about growing up in Detroit’s Chinatown in the 1980s. The author touches on many different aspects of his childhood and teenage years, ranging from racism, immigrant issues, and figuring out his sexual identity to the intricacies of running a restaurant and the complexities of his family’s relationship. There are some rather heartbreaking moments, as well as plenty of small scenes that made me smile or laugh. I enjoyed the whole framing device of the restaurant, and how the author drew parallels between his cooking (mis)adventures and his coming-of-age experiences.

I really liked how candid the narrative was. It’s rather obvious the author has changed his views on multiple political and social subject since he was a kid (don’t we all?), and he alludes to those changes pretty transparently, but then he immediately delves deep into the mindset he remembers having during the events he describes. I think it takes a lot of self-awareness to paint a frank, complete picture of your own lack of self-awareness in the past, and a lot of courage, too.

There were a few parts where I felt the narrative meandered or jumped around a bit, but overall, this was a great reading experience with a lot of food for thought. Also, with a lot of food in general—there are some great descriptions from the titular restaurant’s kitchen!

I picked this book up as a source of inspiration for creating fictional monsters and wasn’t disappointed! It’s a collection of myths and legends about the Japanese yokai, very well-organized and written in a unique format. For the most part, it’s written under the assumption that the yokai exist, the reader may well run into one in their lifetime, and here’s what they’ve got to do to survive the encounter. Or to come to terms with their gruesome death, in case survival isn’t much of an option. The tongue-in-cheek humor in some of these sections made me chuckle out loud. 

By the end of each chapter that describes a specific monster, the narrative gradually moves away from this mindset, describing the legends about the yokai and the historical events and circumstances that may have led to their existence and putting a bit of distance between legend and reality. Then the next chapter starts, and we go back to that “If you run into this creature…“ mindset. It really creates an interesting effect and makes what could have been a regular collection of myths and legends a lot more immersive. And the gorgeous illustrations certainly help a lot, too!

All in all, a really cool experience of a book.

I really liked the idea of the book, but I didn’t really vibe with the execution. To be honest, I find it a bit hard to put a finger on what it was that made me start actively lose interest around the middle despite the stakes rising and the pace quickening and the characters being the kind I usually find fun to follow. Perhaps it was actually the pacing, and if so, then it’s likely “it’s not the book, it’s me“ issue. But also perhaps it was just how the books kept presenting me with promising stuff and then glossing over the aspects I liked the most.

I also kind of felt that while the characters all had really interesting deals and backstories, the way those were handled was kind of shallow. At first, I strongly expected Boots to become my favorite. A badass older woman, a war vet who struggled to find a place for herself after a big war and made some questionable choices, her entire conflict with Cordell over the different choices they made for the same reason? It was all so promising. But while during the rare downtimes the author did try to delve into all that, I feel like plenty of really cool opportunities were discarded in favor of space action and spaceship crawling. Honestly, the character I felt I connected to the most was Nilah whose arc was constructed out of some far simpler building blocks: a star athlete living a carefully constructed, training-focused, media-friendly life finds herself in the middle of a conspiracy she doesn’t understand, ends up captive on a spaceship run by a crew of misfits, and discovers the world is so much bigger and more complex than she’s known. In a way, it’s like every coming of age story ever, but I feel like the book digs into it deep enough and Nilah’s experience come up fresh and vivid enough on the page that it still feels exiciting and somewhat novel. Yes, I’ve read about sheltered young people thrown smackdab into the middle of things bigger than them before, but I’ve never read about Nilah. Meanwhile with the characters who are advertised as complex and multilayered from the beginning ended up falling flat as too little was done with all that potential. Just goes to show how much execution can make or break ideas!

The worldbuilding left me with the same feeling: interesting on the surface, but it lacked substance. I actually really enjoyed the early chapters where I was just thrown into this sci-fantasy universe with no explanation. It was all tech magic, forgeries, racing, spaceship, scavenging in space, the aftermath of a war, class differences, conspiracies, and I was eagerly waiting for it all to come together and start making sense. But while I did feel more confident a few chapters in, I felt like too many things were handwaved rather than explained, and as a result the world never felt fully solid.

The plot is probably the best aspect of the book, with lots of excitement and rising stakes, part heist, part dungeon crawl but make it spaceships instead of underground caverns. There were some distinct Firefly vibes, which I appreciated as a fan of the show. Reading big parts of it felt like watching an action movie. Funny thing: I think I would have enjoyed it more if the author made the world more generic and picked characters with simpler deals to go through all the same events.

Like pretty much any anthology, this one is varied: there were stories that left a lasting impressions on me, there were ones that were more forgettable. Still, on the whole, I really, really liked this read. The lowest I’d rate any given story would be 3.5, and there were quite a few clearly 5-star ones.

My absolute favorite story here is Loved by All, Save One by Tori Bovalino. It starts as a ghost story, then goes into a far more realistic and terrifying direction, and when the ghost does appear, it definitely doesn’t happen in a predictable ghost story way. This was the one tale that actually genuinely scared me, to the point that I very much regretted reading it after dark with everyone around me asleep. I also just genuinely loved the heartbreaking idea behind the whole thing (staying vague here because I don’t want to spoil anything).

Another one I enjoyed a lot was One-Lane Bridge by Hannah Whitten. Despite the small size of the tale, I felt like I connected with the MC very well. I liked the small twists along the road and absolutely adored the ending. Also, the vibes early on kind of reminded me of one of my favorite early episodes of Buzzfeed Unsolved: Supernatural. The one with the bridge, you know the one.

To round off the top-3, I think I’m choosing Truth or Dare by Alex Brown. An absolute trip, dreamlike and sad, beautifully written. It gave me some Orpheus and Euridica vibes, except kind of upside down / the other way round. So strange and delicious.

For a couple of honorable mentions, there’ Stay by Erica Waters—a little rushed, I felt, but ultimately super atmospheric and evocative. And also Ghost on the Shore by Allison Saft that focuses so hard on the pain of letting go and builds up to a more hopeful ending than I expected. 

I perhaps found it a little repetitive how many stories were set during the characters’ last summer holiday or last summer in their hometowns, but at the same time I understand why the authors must have gravitated toward the same decisions. It’s a bit of a liminal time when the old weighs you down harder than usual, everything is possible, and everything is about to change. Makes it promising for YA horror in many ways.

All in all, I liked this way more than I expected to like it and definitely recommend it to those who are into folk horror and YA horror in general!

This was a really quick and engrossing read for me. Though I feel I should note that, unlike the previous book in the series, this one hardly read as a cozy fantasy at all. More like, a regular old-school adventure fantasy story with pirates, traveling, heists, magic, searching for clues to a mystery, and helping defeat a bad guy. There were definitely some moments that I’ve come to associate with cozy fantasy as a genre—moments focusing on communities and making each other’s lives better. But overall, I feel like this story would be better described as lighthearted and hopeful than cozy.

I liked seeing how Reina and Kianthe’s relationship has been growing and evolving. It’s honestly lovely to see an established relationship that combines romance and passion and that comfortable familiarity you get from sharing your life with another person. They understand each other so much better now, and they’re so much better at compromising and talking things out and not letting the hard parts keep them from the good parts. Kianthe has also grown on me so much as an individual character. With Reina, it’s more complicated; for the most part, I like her, but some of the conclusions she comes to while dealing with her baggage of being the villain’s guard are things I viscerally disagree with. But, hey, that makes her a complex character who isn’t all black and white, so can’t complain about that, right?

While the story is told through Reina and Kianthe’s alternating POVs, it’s not really their story. Their own goals feel like a mere side plot to the real story where the real protagonists are Serina and Bobbie: respectively, a Robin Hood-ish pirate who steals food from the rich to distribute it to those in need and the constable in the service of the bad guy who tries to be a good person by being all lawful, except she gradually has to accept that in this case, the law is bad actually. Theirs is also the main romance—friends to enemies to lovers, my very favorite trope! And it hits pretty hard, despite being told entirely through Kianthe and Reina’s eyewitness accounts instead of the reader ever getting to delve into Bobbie or Serina’s first-hand experiences. I actually found this approach really interesting: the two narrators actually being side characters in someone else’s story.

The new characters were fun to meet, and I absolutely adored Serina and her determination to do something about the crappy system instead of putting up with it. The thing that rubbed me the wrong way about the previous book was that message that felt like, “There’s evil in the world, but you can’t do anything about it, you can just escape it and start a nice life somewhere else while the evil ruins other people’s lives.“ Which would be one thing if the characters through whom this message was conveyed were, like, regular small folk, not the most powerful mage in the setting and someone who knows plenty of the villain’s secrets and weak spots. Serina cares very much about other people, and that immediately endeared me to her—and I loved seeing Kianthe and Reina embroiled in the plot of actually fighting badness for the sake of others. Combined with the hints about how the evil queen plotline may develop later and what they can actually *do* about it, I’m way more excited for the next installment.

It was also super nice to see all the folks from the previous installment show up, even though most of them were more cameos than returning characters. Diarn Feo got a rather prominent role, though, and they’re my favorite, so yay for that! If only there could be more Matild, too, she’s so awesome. Maybe next book?