Donald Maass Literary Agency

Kirkus: Unhappy about being at summer camp instead of getting to stay home with his desperately ill brother, a 12-year-old boy follows a mysterious fog and meets the infamous witch of Cabin 23. Vernon’s brother had told him about the witch, but he’s surprised by how much the witch knows about him. Reluctant to talk about his own life, he settles in instead to hear “the scariest story ever told.” In it, a sixth grade Lipan Apache boy named Sean leaves Texas to stay with his cousin, Zeke, in Massachusetts after his mother’s cancer treatment led to bankruptcy. One day, Sean and Zeke find a missing cat and her kittens in an abandoned cliffside house. A girl named Jenny appears, warning of danger—just before the ground collapses, plunging the house to the shoreline below. Trapped by rising tides on an upper floor, the kids encounter a lurking monster. The ocean creature, angry over humans’ destructive, wasteful ways, offers them a deal: If they can guess one of its names, it will return them safely to land, and Sean is reminded of the monster in the Rio Grande from one of his mother’s stories. The cousins’ heritage is integral to this stand-alone series entry that weaves environmental themes into a layered, high-stakes survival story. The characters are caringly developed, adding emotional depth, and genuine tension and scares propel the story. Expertly crafted chills and thrills in a rich tale that’s so much more than the sum of its parts.

Library Journal: Vycol Ferec believes he’s working for the city of Wickhills, doing good and smoothing down the rough edges. However, he’s really the secret police, and this mission is going to get a whole lot of people killed, including his own team—unless they betray him first. He’s protecting a scientist who has discovered a way to destroy all the city walls, and everyone is out to capture that secret so they can do unto others first. Vycol Ferec is never certain whether he should keep running or stop fighting because he’s burning through his friends and his enemies, and it looks like no one is going to come out of this alive, possibly not even the city he loves. This gas-lamp urban fantasy combines an exciting adventure, a walk through dangerous, secret places, and one man’s crisis. The pace is relentless, the characters are unreliable at every turn, and the stakes are high with every step. VERDICT Recommend Mohamed’s (The First Thousand Trees) latest to lovers of gas-lamp fantasy, epic political machinations, or hidden motives and anyone who has wondered what a fantasy version of Green City Wars by Adrian Tchaikovsky would look like.

Booklist: Mohamed’s latest (after The First Thousand Trees, 2025) starts with Ferec, a secret agent, and his partner, Tanczel, searching for a rare object that could be very dangerous if misused. This leads to a grave outcome, with Ferec left to pick up the pieces. His suspicions that he and his partner were set up increase as the story plays out, and he is determined to find out who may have done this. Unfortunately, this makes his employer regard him as a dissident and untrustworthy. Mohamed’s rich, atmospheric descriptions of the setting of Wickhills call to mind a modern-day steampunk version of London. The theme of surviving a rough city with precarious rules runs steadily throughout the book in tandem with the fantastical elements. Ferec’s struggle to survive the increasing forces against him intensifies as each new discovery puts him in more danger. Fans of China Miéville’s novels, particularly King Rat (1999) and Perdido Street Station (2001), as well as Jeff Vandermeer’s Southern Reach series will enjoy.