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Review: LOST IN YELLOWSTONE by Nicole Maggi

Mar 032026
 

Kirkus: What’s the connection between a missing person, a severed foot in a sneaker, and a group of troubled kids?

Emmeline Helliwell, a special agent for the National Park Service, is sent to Yellowstone to unravel the mystery of a foot blown out of a geyser in front of a group of tourists. She’d rather be anywhere else, having left Yellowstone three years earlier, when she was unable to close a missing persons case, abandoning her boyfriend, fellow park ranger Holden Thrush, with no explanation. Although the coroner’s report shows the foot belonged to a malnourished teenager, no one has reported a teen missing from the vicinity. Emme gets a clue from a sharp-eyed tourist who noticed something red when the foot flew her way. Awkwardly, the only person available to help Emme with the investigation is Holden. At the geyser, they spot something red, and both get burned recovering it—but it turns out to be a useful clue: a red pocket knife. They manage to connect it to Higher Purpose, a wilderness school for troubled teens. Despite its fancy promotional video, the school is a dump, and by checking permits and interviewing the handyman, Emme and Holden learn that a group from the school is in Yellowstone right now and another was there a few months ago. Locating the area of the park the Higher Purpose group set off from, they follow the students’ trail on horseback until they come upon three woefully unprepared teens who’d been kicked out of the main group after having been taken from their homes (with their parents’ permission), then mistreated and starved. Clearly, the school is worse than Emme could have imagined. But are its owners killing their students?

Stunning scenery and romantic tensions combine in a ripped-from-the-headlines mystery.

 

 March 3, 2026  Tagged with: ,

Review: THE TRICKY BUSINESS OF FAERIE BARGAINS by Reena McCarty

Mar 022026
 

Library Journal: In McCarty’s debut, a human named Poppy tries to prevent diplomatic chaos but gets caught up in Fae court machinations. Three years ago, Poppy was returned to the human world after 100 years of serving on the Otherside, in the land of the Fae. She works for an organization that handles legal bargains between humans and the othersiders. After growing up in the Wild Lands of the Fae, she isn’t adjusting well, and when a deal goes wrong, she seizes the chance to return to the Otherside and fix her error. However, Poppy soon realizes that the stakes of her mission are far greater than she thought and that the fate of both worlds may rest upon her choices. This is a fantasy with a distinctly unsettling edge, featuring Fae who can be dangerous and cunning. While the focus of the book is Poppy’s struggle to find a place in one world or the other and understand her previous life, the worldbuilding leaves room for more adventures to come. VERDICT For readers seeking fae-related fantasy with more intrigue and introspection than romance.

 March 2, 2026  Tagged with: ,

Review: SECONDS TO SPARE by Rachel Reiss

Feb 262026
 

Kirkus: Two 18-year-olds get stuck in a time loop during a flight from Kona to Los Angeles that seems about to end without warning, with the plane heading into a nosedive, before the cycle abruptly restarts.

Aloha Airlines Flight 1333 was supposed to take Evelyn Werth back home across the Pacific Ocean along with her father’s ashes. But something went wrong, and just as the plane drops, apparently about to crash, time rewinds and Evelyn ends up back where she was 28 minutes earlier. To make things worse, the rest of the passengers and crew have no awareness that anything is amiss. Several things consistently happen: The pilot announces that the internet is out, the plane experiences five and a half minutes of turbulence followed by 11 minutes of calm, a woman in the last row collapses, and then the nose of the plane tips forward, and it begins a terrifying descent. After living through this sequence hundreds of times, Evelyn accidentally wakes up the only passenger who has slept throughout: Orion “Rion” James. He joins her in experiencing and remembering the loops, but this new development triggers a life-threatening change. Evelyn and Rion, who both present white, share the first-person, present-tense narration in this romantic thriller that explores different aspects of mortality and grief. The tension, dynamic pacing, suspense, and romance make this a strong page-turner.

Thrilling and captivating. (seat map) (Speculative thriller. 14-18)

 

 February 26, 2026  Tagged with: ,

Starred Review: TWELVE MONTHS by Jim Butcher

Feb 202026
 

Kirkus: This is wizard Harry Dresden’s yearlong mourning period for Karrin Murphy, the woman he loved.

If you keep upping your protagonist’s powers throughout a series, then you must balance the scales by increasing the number and strength of their enemies—as well as seriously messing with their personal life. Over the course of the Dresden Files, Harry Dresden, Chicago PI and now one of the most powerful wizards in the world, thought his first love was dead (she wasn’t), sacrificed his half-vampire girlfriend on an altar to save their child, lost another girlfriend when they learned she’d been mind-controlled into their relationship, bound himself into servitude as the Fae Queen Mab’s Winter Knight, and, for the length of an entire book, thought he himself was dead (he wasn’t). But nothing has hit quite as hard as the death of Karrin Murphy, the former police lieutenant who was his quasi-partner, friend, and, after a slow burn across many books, lover. Chicago is in a terrible state following a battle with Ethniu the Titan and her Fomor army, and Harry is doing his best to confront the monsters, dark magic, and anti-supernatural prejudice running wild amid the slowly rebuilding city. He’s also trying to save his half brother Thomas from two different death sentences, train a new apprentice, and juggle a relationship with Thomas’s half sister Lara, the dangerously seductive vampire Queen Mab is forcing him to marry. But he’s doing all this while nearly crushed by grief that threatens his judgment and disturbs his control over his magical powers. Butcher really makes you feel the dark, depressive state Harry exists in as well as the effect it’s having on his friends. Despite all that happens in it, this book is a pause as well as a setup for the series’ planned conclusion, an epic conflict with the eldritch creatures known as “the Outsiders.” It’s a tough, redemptive pause that could be a real drag, but thankfully, it’s not, because Butcher shows balance, too: Even as the crises pile up, so do the help and goodwill from unexpected sources.

The series’ snarky noir vibe might be dwindling, but there’s something of substance in its place.

 February 20, 2026  Tagged with: ,

Review: TRACE ELEMENTS by Jo Walton and Ada Palmer

Feb 182026
 

Booklist: This collaboration between two prominent sf authors blends historical research, anecdotal narratives, and even a few poems. Sf fans might already be familiar with authors Walton (Or What You Will, 2020) and Palmer (Perhaps the Stars, 2021), but this collection of both authors’ nonfiction is an extensive plunge into sf’s deep end. While not having an overarching theme, these articles cover a broad range of topics, including the contract between author and reader, the histories of various genres and mediums that evolved alongside sf, and the writers’ own experiences with writing and living as disabled authors and  instructors, with each piece showcasing a massive amount of depth. These articles, many of them co-written, show off their individual writing strengths, including historian Palmer’s ability to synthesize an encyclopedia’s worth of information and Walton’s skill in deconstructing tropes based on the stories she’s read and watched. While this book is a dense read, it’s also a comprehensive academic tome about what sf is and, perhaps most importantly, what it can be.

 February 18, 2026  Tagged with: ,

Starred Review: DEATH TIMES SEVEN by Anne Perry

Feb 122026
 

Library Journal: Cementing her place in a long line of legendary British crime novelists such as Sayers, Christie, and Conan Doyle, prolific bestseller Perry (author of the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt books) puts her usual skillful historical spin on the genre in this compelling yarn, begun before she died in 2023 and later seamlessly finished by her friend and fellow author Zackheim (The Bone Weaver). The seventh installment in Perry’s Daniel Pitt series (following The Fourth Enemy) is set in pre–World War I England and features barrister Pitt, son of Thomas and Charlotte, and his brilliant pathologist wife Miriam. Readers follow Daniel as he’s thrown into two separate high-stakes murder cases: one, an ongoing sensational London murder trial; the other, the puzzling murder and assault of his law partner’s parents in rural Ipswich. The tension between the two cases drives the story as Daniel is torn between the murders, the locations, and doubts about his abilities. VERDICT Even after more than 100 books, Perry’s storytelling skills were sharp until the end. The strong storyline, intricate plotting, incisive exploration of social issues, and Perry’s trademark active prose make this one of her best. A highly recommended addition to all historical detective fiction collections.

 February 12, 2026  Tagged with: ,

Review: INTERGALACTIC FEAST by Lavanya Laksminarayan

Feb 052026
 

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.

 February 5, 2026  Tagged with: ,

Review: INTERGALACTIC FEAST by Lavanya Laksminarayan

Jan 262026
 

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.

 January 26, 2026  Tagged with: ,

Review: TWELVE MONTHS by Jim Butcher

Jan 092026
 

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.

 January 9, 2026  Tagged with: ,

Review: LOST GIRLS OF HOLLOW LAKE by Rebekah Faubion

Dec 232025
 

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.

 December 23, 2025  Tagged with: ,
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