Publishers Weekly: Lakshminarayan once again indulges readers with a zany sci-fi plot and delicious descriptions of food…. Lakshminarayan’s meditations on food and culture and the different ways of experiencing both mix smoothly with the politics and intrigue that the main characters find themselves caught up in. Fans of the first book will not want to miss this.
Library Journal: Lakshminarayan’s sequel to Interstellar Megachef is a compelling story of culinary delights, planetary xenophobia, and being true to oneself…. Readers will devour this novel, with its multiple points of view, sharp writing, and a constant pace, plus a slow-burn romance.
Publishers Weekly: Butcher shifts gears in his emotional 18th urban fantasy featuring professional wizard Harry Dresden (after 2020’s Battle Ground), focusing on the character’s struggles, over the course of one year, to come to terms with recent devastating events. These include the deaths of tens of thousands of Chicagoans, massive infrastructure damage, Dresden’s expulsion from the White Council of Wizardry, and the murder of his significant other, Karrin Murphy. Unfortunately, the threats to his city and those dear to him haven’t stopped just because Dresden is processing so much trauma; the corpses of the fallen attract ghouls who hunger for human flesh, and the damage to the city’s streets makes supplying its residents with food and other necessities extremely difficult. If that wasn’t enough, Dresden finds that he has another loved one at risk: his half brother Thomas, who is battling a malevolent possessing spirit. The high-stakes plotlines keep the pages turning as rapidly as ever, but this installment’s greatest strength lies in its exploration of Dresden’s mental state as his resilience is tested as never before. It’s not the ideal jumping-in place for newcomers, but those invested will appreciate this more intimate, and ultimately more optimistic, outing for Dresden.
Publishers Weekly: A secret stalks the survivors of a catastrophic class trip in Faubion’s harrowing Pacific Northwest–set horror novel. Local legend says that within Hollow Lake sits Dead Refuge Island, which can only occasionally be seen, and only by some. “People who look for the island don’t ever come back,” so when Evie Williams and seven other teen girls vanish during a Shady Cove High–sponsored outing to Hollow Lake National Park, people fear the worst. Forty-six days later, however, Evie and four fellow “Lost Girls” return home. When questioned, the quintet falsely claim that they and the still-missing trio got separated while lost in the trees; the nightmarish truth is hardly believable, and telling fictions allows them to forget it. Evie and company agree to steer clear of each other, until somebody starts texting them recorded threats from a girl they know to be dead, forcing them to band together and investigate. Evie’s unfiltered first-person narration alternates between the present-day mystery and the events she experienced at Hollow Lake. Despite an arbitrary-feeling denouement, Faubion delivers a riveting tale that’s both affecting and petrifying, juxtaposing psychological and supernatural terrors with tender queer romance and a heartwarming human-canine bond. Characters are intersectionally diverse.
Locus: I didn’t know that I needed another book about Karen Memery, the main character in Elizabeth Bear’s take on steampunk (Restoration-era Northwestern U.S. flavor) that launched in 2015 with Karen Memory and was followed up by Stone Mad in 2018. Those rain-soaked, gear-full days feel like a hazy moment when we all wondered if we should be investing in goggles and corsets for a much more whimsical future. Here we are, ten years on. Is there still a place for a story about a former teenage sex worker with moxie and smarts who uses both to right wrongs and solve crimes?
Oh yes there is a place. Bear shows us. Angel Maker picks up where Memery’s story left off in Stone Mad, with Karen and Priya out of the business and carving out a life in the countryside. But Bear herself isn’t stuck in their past. The seven years between books two and three has deepened her voice as a writer and added resonance to the relationships between the characters and within themselves.
The movie business has come to Rapid City, and Karen finds herself the stunt double for a trick-shootin’ gal who Bear sets up as an Annie Oakley analogue in this world. Priya finds work with the crew, too, and both see the extra income as an opportunity to get ahead. Then a double murder occurs, Priya is accused, and Karen is forced to clear her beloved’s name.
Bear gives you all you’d expect from a steampunk Western on a movie set. There is a mechanical cowboy. There’s a horse no one can tame. There are divas and gold mines and Mad Scientists. Characters like Madame Damnable are still around, but have moved into new phases of their lives, too. A well-known Illinois lawyer shows up – but in a surprising kind of way that makes total sense in this world.
But Angel Maker is really a book about relationships, both romantic and non. It’s about how we interact with each other as humans, told in Karen’s poetically blunt voice:
‘‘You got to be who you got to be, and you got to not be who you ain’t, and somehow you got to bend that around the person your lover needs you to be and that person, too – at least acceptably well – and you got to make room for your lover to be who they is while still not giving up your own self, and it ain’t half a wonder we don’t all live in caves and meet once a year to trade hides and salt and onions.’’
Bear salts these nuggets of wisdom throughout Angel Maker’s brisk plot and is clearly having great fun doing so. It’s contagious, that joy, and I’m glad Bear revisited this particular world of hers seven years on.
School Library Journal: A captivating story about the girls who returned from Hollow Lake National Park’s Dead Refuge Island. Eight girls on a school trip decide to adventure to the island, which no one can see, and no one has ever returned from. Only five return, but the island has haunted each girl from the moment they were saved. When the girls reintegrate into society, friends and teachers who were affiliated with the missing ones are killed. No one knows who this serial killer may be, but all hands are pointing to Evie. Eighteen-year-old Evie shares her perspective of the events, starting from the present day and going back to her time on the island, explaining how she survived, but remains haunted. Navigating the love for their newfound freedom becomes harder for all the girls than fighting on the island for their survival was. Faubion’s (The Sun and the Moon) prose captivates readers from start to finish; each turn of the page is surprising as Evie processes what happens to her on the island, and the other surviving girls manage their own grief, anger, sadness, and fear. This story is best suited for older readers, since it contains graphic details about gore as well as harsh and explicit language. Evie is white, and her love interest, Sunny, is Asian American. VERDICT A fast, enthralling mystery.
Booklist: It has been three weeks since the devastating magical attack on Chicago (Battle Ground, 2020), leaving the city in complete disarray and wizard Harry Dresden’s life in shambles. He is mourning the loss of a loved one, has been banished from the White Council of Wizards—although he is not as upset about that—and has been forced by the ruthless Queen Mab into an engagement to the provocative leader of the White Vampires. Harry is grieving and exhausted but nevertheless providing food and shelter for neighbors left homeless by the battle. He is not sure how, or even if, he will recover. What he needs is time, but Mab has given him the impossible task of resolving a conflict with the sovereign of another magical nation, the same king who wants Harry’s brother dead. And an overzealous new White Council warden is out for Harry’s literal head. His friends and, oddly, his new fiancée are trying to help, offering support, a new apprentice, and a Valkyrie bodyguard, but the heartbreak and anguish may still be too much. Series fans will be intrigued by the new characters and changes in Harry’s life as Butcher deftly explores the impacts of loss and grief.
AudioFile: Eric Mok returns to narrate this sequel to WITCH KING, bringing back all of his wonderfully varied British accents for the large cast. The narrative jumps back and forth between two timelines: In the past, immortal demon Kaiisteron and Prince-heir Bishasha advance against the powerful, subjugating Heirarchs; years later in the present day, long after the war is over, Kai and his found family investigate whether any Heirarchs might still survive. While some close listening is required to keep the two timelines straight, Mok ensures that each character, past and present, is instantly recognizable. Listeners are rewarded with a sweeping, immersive story full of fascinating details and studded with small, intimate, moving moments between characters we come to care deeply about.
Shelf Awareness: Even in Tartarus, the great labyrinth builder reckons with the death of his son and confronts his failures as a father and a man in Seamus Sullivan’s debut novella, Daedalus Is Dead.
Daedalus’s son, Icarus, famously flew too close to the sun with the wings his father built for the two of them to escape from King Minos. The wax melted, and Icarus crashed into the sea and died. Years after escaping, building a monument to his son, and trying and failing to find any trace of Minos’s daughter Ariadne, Daedalus dies of an infection. But King Minos, now also dead, judges the souls in the underworld, and even though Persephone herself takes Daedalus into her service, Minos will not allow him to see his son again. What’s more, the Minotaur runs loose in Tartarus, devouring the spirits of heroes. But as Daedalus encounters people from his life, he realizes the stories he told himself about his actions don’t always match the perceptions of others.
This nonchronological telling of events flits between Daedalus’s time in the underworld and his memories of Icarus’s childhood and their eventual flight from Crete. Sullivan heart-wrenchingly conveys a father’s grief at the loss of his child. By giving the Minotaur a preferred diet of heroes, he also explores what exactly made a hero of Greek myth, and whether heroism and virtue have anything in common. The result is a devastating examination of fatherhood and masculinity. –Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library
Discover: In this devastating examination of fatherhood and masculinity, Daedalus spends his time in the underworld reckoning with his son’s death and confronting his own failures.
Publishers Weekly: In this sprawling series opener, Bishop (the Black Jewels series) crafts an entertaining and sometimes brutal tale of magic, mystery, and mischief. Shortly after Junior Detective Beth Fahey is assigned to the Penwych police’s 13th precinct special investigations team, she’s tapped for an unusual case involving a magical gun. The inquiry sends her across the Fate River to the Isle of Wyrd to search for answers with the Arcana, the Isle’s enigmatic, fae-like inhabitants who believe that bargains are sacrosanct, intentions have power, and nothing comes free. Swiftly entangled in the doings of the mythical and mysterious, Beth discovers her presence among the Arcana is no accident, and her destiny rests in the hands of their Sorcerer King, Lucas Frost. Meanwhile, a series of intertwined disappearances and deaths create tension between the Arcana and their human visitors, building to a crisis point. Over multiple perspectives, Bishop dwells on themes of escaping abuse, finding freedom, and determining one’s destiny. There’s a fairy tale morality at play: those who embrace cruelty or ignore warnings tend to experience horrible fates, while those seeking peace or safety are offered opportunities for healing and sanctuary. Subtle in its magic if not its messaging, this is a thought-provoking work.