Donald Maass Literary Agency

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.

Publishers Weekly: In a stunning contemporary fantasy from Lipan Apache Newbery Honoree Little Badger and featuring artwork from Rajunov (Looking at the Sky), three teens determine to save their home from forces both supernatural and benign. Sixteen-year-old Maisie’s peaceful life in Sunny Parks, a mobile home community populated by her extended family, is upended following a meeting with the son of the legendary Big Owl, a prominent figure in Lipan Apache stories, who warns Maisie that “a terrible fate looms.” With few details to work with (“It’s imminent, this tragedy. That’s all I know”), Maisie is pulled into a tangle of overlapping mysteries while trying to prevent impending disaster: a vengeful ghost haunts her cousin, new information in a long-unsolved murder case incriminates another relative, her late best friend’s time capsule disappears, and a recently arrived foster cat has been behaving strangely. Competing clues and rising tensions within Sunny Parks repeatedly stymie Maisie’s attempts to sidestep catastrophe. Omniscient narration is peppered with letters and diary entries from two of Maisie’s cousins as well as ethereal, earth-toned comics, layering contextual and visual excitement atop a lush, multifaceted tale. Mystery and speculative elements converge in this fluid, intricately constructed story that balances suspenseful plotting with emotional resonance and cultural depth.

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.

Kirkus: The Lipan Apache Moreno cousins, who are growing up in the Sunny Park mobile home community, feel powerless after Maisie’s best friend, Mara, dies and they lose their cousin Connor to a wrongful conviction for voluntary manslaughter. When Owl, a winged boy who’s the son of Big Owl, the legendary “father of birds,” cryptically warns Maisie about a tragedy that will befall people close to her, she vows to prevent it. Podcasters are nosing around Sunny Park, trying to find out more about Connor. But Maisie and Verona are sharing a house-sitting job at an apparently haunted horse ranch, while Joel’s days are full looking after foster kittens at their Grandma and Great-Aunt Fran’s house—and complicated by a shapeshifting feline. This coming-of-age tale follows the cousins on a quest that will both challenge and define them. It unfolds in a creative mixed-media format: Little Badger (Lipan Apache) seamlessly interweaves third-person narration with the leads’ first-person chapters, which are printed on ruled notebook pages, and Rajunov’s artful full-color comics panels. The gorgeous, multicolored palette of the book’s pages evokes the Southwest Texas setting. Genre-defying, fantastical, and imbued with deeply human realism, this narrative is grounded in the vulnerability, resiliency, and bravery of young people as they overcome hardship and right historical, generational, and systemic wrongs. A magical story that both haunts and enchants.