Donald Maass Literary Agency

Library Journal: Leveret and Annelid star in a television show with a bloody finale; Vidyucchika is stalked by the corpse of the boy she betrayed; Viramunda hunts down her betrayer on a sun-scorched Earth. This novel is a sweeping slipstream epic that follows two intertwined personalities as they recur in new guises through time, moving from the mythic past to modern Sri Lanka to a far-future Earth abandoned by humanity. One of them always dies, but is there an escape from the cycle—and should they take it if there is? Chandrasekera challenges readers but rewards them with a breathtaking narrative that invokes sci-fi, fantasy, and myth to express the endless struggle of revolution. As they recur throughout worlds and time lines that draw inspiration from South Asian culture and religion, the duo at the story’s heart are reshaped by their experiences until they reach a conclusion that guarantees the fight will go on.

VERDICT In Chandrasekera’s (The Saint of Bright Doors) newest, the characters’ journey through fantastical worlds across millennia is reminiscent of This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. Recommended for fans of ambitious speculative fiction that tackles systems of oppression in fresh ways.

School Library Journal: This prequel to Elatsoe features Ellie’s grandmother Shane, a 17-year-old Lipan Apache, and further expands upon the strange and unique world. Shane and her mother track down missing persons using ghost dogs (familiar to those who’ve read Elatsoe), even when the families can’t pay them. This means Shane is used to barely scraping by, her deep practicality almost at odds with her unique power to raise the dead. When her mother disappears after tangling with a fairy ring, Shane will journey across the south and the world Below to find her. The narrative emphasizes generational trauma and the power of community with flashbacks, finding ways to ground the fantastical worldbuilding elements of vampires, fae, and ghosts in the culture and relationships Shane finds important. Little Badger artfully navigates Shane’s family history—from disasters to stolen land—and how they fight to reclaim their identity. While the novel stands alone, common elements from the first book reappear to add humor and tension. Part road trip, part classic quest, this novel manages to add fresh and exciting elements to the worldbuilding while retaining Elatsoe’s slightly spooky atmosphere. The flashbacks and changes in point-of-view slightly hinder the pacing, but readers will likely be too invested in Shane’s story to care. Shane and her family are Lipan Apache, with additional diversity in the supporting cast.

VERDICT: A wonderful addition to the Elatsoe universe with vital representation, worthy of any YA collection. Highly recommended.

Esquire: The latest work from the astonishingly prolific Mohamed (who has three books out this year alone) is a visceral yet intimate story about violence, nationalism, and war. Injured, captured, and tortured by his own side in an endless conflict, the famous pacifist Alefret is sent on a mission to infiltrate an enemy city. With him is Qhudur, a fanatic who will do anything for victory. Mohamed’s bio-technical setting is vivid and unusual—trained medical wasps, floating cities, and lightspiders dot these pages—but the heart of her story is Alefret’s moral struggle. Would killing Qhudur, an act of violence, lead to peace? When does violence become a habit that a country cannot break? How can a person hold tight to their ideals even amid suffering? How can stories and myths help sustain us? But The Siege of Burning Grass isn’t just a thoughtful consideration of war and pacifism; it’s also a feat of worldbuilding, moral complexity, and taut, precisely paced storytelling. After this, I’m ready to hunt down everything else Mohamed has ever written.

Booklist: Little Badger returns to the world of her revelatory, award-winning debut, Elatsoe (2020). Seventeen-year-old Lipan Apache Shane and her mother, Lorenza, set out on a search-and-rescue mission to find two young siblings missing in Texas hill country. In this alternate 1970s America, fairy rings are transport centers. The missing seem to have stumbled on a group of dangerously unpredictable (and potentially world-destroying) mimic rings. They could be anywhere—and anytime. After Lorenza vanishes too, Shane undertakes her first solo rescue with the help of her ghost dog, Nellie. (Like all of the women in her family, going back to her four-greats-grandmother, Elatsoe, Shane is a ghostraiser, able to summon insects, birds, and animals to her aid.) The search takes them to a deserted lakeside town hiding a monster, to the site of a notorious Colorado mimic ring disaster, and, ultimately, Below—to the underworld. Shane’s progress is interspersed with family history, stories, and flashbacks to the traumatic loss of their home eight years earlier. A slower pace allows readers to absorb each inventive twist, unexpected encounter, jolt of creepy menace, and dreamy illustration. It also gives them a chance to know the family and friends, old and new, past and present, who witness and support Shane’s growing determination to not only survive and return home but also thrive and find justice.