Horn Book Magazine: In this imaginative work of speculative fiction with a highly visual format, Lipan Apache cousins Maisie, Joel, and Verona work together to understand the strange events happening in their southwest Texas trailer park and solve their attendant mysteries.. After the shapeshifting son of Big Owl, the legendary father of birds, warns Maisie that a tragedy will soon befall someone in her community, she becomes determined to prevent another calamity; she has already lost her best friend to cancer, and an older cousin is in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Meanwhile, Verona is housesitting at a ranch haunted by a vengeful ghost, and Joel is fostering a batch of kittens—though one of those kittens isn’t what it seems. Little Badger’s (Sheine Lende, rev. 5/24) layered storytelling expertly weaves the cousins’ distinct personalities and separate plotlines into a seamless, suspenseful mystery. The book excels in plot construction and in the complex development of its main characters as well as in its themes of systemic injustice, grief, coming of age, and Indigenous heritage and identity. Well-crafted prose passages, letters, and diary entries propel the tale toward its dramatic conclusion. Some portions of the story are told through Rajunov’s expressive, often atmospheric full-color comic panels; occasional digital spot art is also interspersed.Nov 112026
Horn Book Magazine: In this imaginative work of speculative fiction with a highly visual format, Lipan Apache cousins Maisie, Joel, and Verona work together to understand the strange events happening in their southwest Texas trailer park and solve their attendant mysteries.. After the shapeshifting son of Big Owl, the legendary father of birds, warns Maisie that a tragedy will soon befall someone in her community, she becomes determined to prevent another calamity; she has already lost her best friend to cancer, and an older cousin is in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Meanwhile, Verona is housesitting at a ranch haunted by a vengeful ghost, and Joel is fostering a batch of kittens—though one of those kittens isn’t what it seems. Little Badger’s (Sheine Lende, rev. 5/24) layered storytelling expertly weaves the cousins’ distinct personalities and separate plotlines into a seamless, suspenseful mystery. The book excels in plot construction and in the complex development of its main characters as well as in its themes of systemic injustice, grief, coming of age, and Indigenous heritage and identity. Well-crafted prose passages, letters, and diary entries propel the tale toward its dramatic conclusion. Some portions of the story are told through Rajunov’s expressive, often atmospheric full-color comic panels; occasional digital spot art is also interspersed.
November 11, 2026
Booklist: After the events of the first book in the Kingdom of Oak series (The Last Vigilant, 2025), Hawley, still serving the formidable Enelda Drake, has made a somewhat awkward home for himself in a bustling city where he soon finds himself shielding Enelda from too many visitors, who are eager to see the only living True Vigilant and request her help. Against Hawley’s advice, Enelda takes on a seemingly straightforward case brought to her by a young man who is desperate to prove that his grandfather is innocent of treason. At the same time, nobles are being mysteriously murdered across the city, and when the two dangers intersect, Enelda and Hawley find much more than they bargained for. Leaving behind the lore and magic of Majestics and Riftborn for political machinations, Latham’s second book is a deep dive into the motivations of those who think they run the world and the true objectives of those who know they do. With the same vibrant world building and skillful character development of The Last Vigilant, Latham takes readers on a whole new journey, sure to reach an explosive and satisfying conclusion with the proposed third novel of the trilogy.