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Review: TURNS OF FATE by Anne Bishop

Nov 062025
 

Booklist: Beth is new to the police force, a rookie member of the team that investigates unusual happenings, the things that connect with the Arcana living on the Isle of Wyrd. Her first assignment is to cross the river and look into the origins of a ghost gun in Destiny Park. She gets some answers but is left with even more questions—and the challenges of navigating the rules of the Arcana while doing her job as a detective in the human world. Breaking those rules can have dire consequences, some of which are difficult for the human world to understand. Meanwhile, some humans’ thirst for power or revenge drives them to stir up tensions between uneasy neighbors. As the police investigate strange disappearances—and even stranger reappearances—Beth’s mysterious past starts to catch up with her. Fortunately, the arcane side of the river can also be a place of sanctuary. Bishop’s (The Lady in Glass, 2024) series starter is a satisfying tale of consequences and bargains, both for good and ill, with a central character who works through difficult changes and ultimately lands on her feet.

Starred Review: AN AMATEUR WITCH’S GUIDE TO MURDER by K. Valentin

Nov 052025
 

Publishers Weekly: An air of dark whimsy pervades Valentin’s thoroughly entertaining debut. In the five years since Mateo Borrero’s less-than-maternal witch of a mother went missing, the 23-year-old has just been trying to get by; not helping matters is the fact that he’s possessed by a demon. Working at a print shop barely pays the bills for him and his best friend and roommate, Ophelia De La Garza, who finds it hard to hold on to a job due to her partially involuntary powers of astral projection. Doing magic makes Mateo’s demonic possession worse, but it’s his best path to earning some fast cash, so he puts up an online ad offering his supernatural services. Enter the wealthy and endearingly naive Topher Nystrom, who hires Mateo to break the bad-luck curse that keeps killing the people around him. As Mateo and Ophelia dig into Topher’s life and the magic that’s affecting him, Mateo’s situation grows worse and they discover things may be more connected than they thought. Valentin puts a light comedic twist on a gripping story filled with dark magic and murder, and a budding romance between Mateo and Topher adds to the fun. Fans of queer romantic fantasy and cozy horror will be delighted.

Review: SEEING OTHER PEOPLE by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka

Nov 042025
 

Library Journal: A reclusive widower and a lonely wanderer open their hearts to love with the help of two ghosts in Wibberley and Siegemund-Broka’s latest, following Book Boyfriend. Morgan is searching for a solution for an unusual problem—she’s being haunted by the ghost of a past lover, and his supernatural disturbances are threatening her home, her current love life, and her peace of mind. Sawyer, on the other hand, would prefer to stay haunted by the ghost of his fiancée forever, but she has other plans. When Sawyer and Morgan meet at a haunting support group, their ghosts seem to want them to work together to solve their unfinished business. The novel successfully blends humor and sadness, especially via the character of Zach, a ghost who becomes more and more compelling and funny as the book goes on.

VERDICT Wibberley and Siegemund-Broka offer a story about love flourishing, despite and because of sorrow, successfully managing a tricky balancing act between grief, romance, and the paranormal. Recommend to readers who enjoy the work of Rosie Danan and Andie Burke.

Starred Review: TURNS OF FATE by Anne Bishop

Oct 302025
 

Library Journal: The Isle of Wyrd is a place where mundanes can supposedly safely meet the uncanny. Whenever humans disobey the rules, however, Precinct 13 goes out to clean up the mess and pick up the bodies. Not every cop can hack the isle, but newcomer Beth Fahey feels like she’s come home—and the Arcane who control the isle are sure she’s theirs. They also believe that the influence of her past—and theirs—is going to kick off a deadly confrontation on both sides of the Fate River between humans who think the rules don’t apply to them and primeval forces who can’t be influenced, bribed, or bought—only appeased. Bishop’s (“Black Jewels” books) series opener is a story of fate, truth, and consequences, compelling in its description of a world where humans are not in charge yet still have the hubris to believe they are, and where the wild, the weird, and the wonderful are forces that demand obedience and responsibility, as seen through the eyes of a determined investigator who can see both sides of a seemingly insurmountable divide.

VERDICT Highly recommended for lovers of dark fantasy and weird urban fantasy, especially fans of Bishop’s “World of the Others” series.

Review: SEEING OTHER PEOPLE by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka

Oct 222025
 

Kirkus: Morgan has been a nomad all her adult life, haunted by past failures and seeking new places to escape them by taking landscaping jobs around the country. But being followed by the ghost of Zach, a one-time hookup, is a new experience even for her. Then she meets Sawyer, who’s been mourning his fiancée, Kennedy, and clinging to her ghost in the house in Los Angeles’ Silver Lake neighborhood they’d planned to redesign together. In trying to free both their ethereal companions and themselves, Morgan and Sawyer agree to work together. Sawyer will let Morgan stay in the studio attached to his haunted house and help her figure out her ex’s unfulfilled wishes so Zach’s ghost can pass on; Morgan will landscape the garden Sawyer planned to create with his fiancée so Kennedy’s spirit can be at peace. As they crisscross Los Angeles in their quixotic quest, Sawyer starts to develop feelings for the free-spirited Morgan even as he fears losing his tie to a happy past. Morgan, meanwhile, is thinking of putting down roots, drawn to Sawyer as he puts himself back together. For a new love to grow, both need to conquer their fear of loss. Despite long meditations on death and grief, the novel has some funny moments, thanks to Zach, who used to be a surfer. The third act breakup and subsequent resolution bogs down the narrative’s early momentum and could have used some pruning. The L.A. setting is integral to the plot, serving almost as a character; the location and its careful use in the narrative feel like a rarity in contemporary romance at the moment.

For readers looking for a sentimental romance with ghostly leanings.

Review: QUEEN DEMON by Martha Wells

Oct 102025
 

Booklist: Witch King (2023) introduced readers to Kai and his crew of disgruntled witches and other assorted enemies of the former Hierarchs. Wells continues their story here, recounting how scholar Dahin has a theory that means they need to go to the archaeological site of the Hierarchs’ origin, and quickly. Meanwhile, an accompanying time line from the past tells a story of Bashara and Kai and their journeys together in the older war, before the events of the first novel. New threats rise up to bring the old world’s violence and pain coming back to the fore as Wells sets up for a series climax. Readers will benefit from having learned the breadth of world and character details in the first volume and, without the need to study here, will blaze more easily through the action and politics. The past story line begins to feel auxiliary to the primary one but does include good character development. Fans of character-rooted high fantasy will enjoy this series led by a demon with a surprisingly soft heart.

Review: GOING MENOPOSTAL by Amy Alkon

Oct 012025
 

Kirkus: Science writer and columnist Alkon offers an all-encompassing look at menopause and perimenopause—and how to thrive throughout both.

When the author started waking up multiple times a night, she chalked it up to stress. But when it became hot flashes and night sweats, she quickly realized “at 52, menopause was finally creeping up.” She begins with a deep dive into the current standard medical advice for women going through menopause, much of which is outdated or outright incorrect; she also offers compelling studies showing that many doctors are unable or unwilling to alter long-prescribed courses of treatment, even when presented with new information that directly contradicts them. The next section lays out the overwhelming number of mental, physical, and sexual symptoms that fluctuating and declining hormones can cause before looking at the long-term health benefits of hormone replacement therapies. Lastly, she offers in-depth advice on how to speak to a doctor in order to get care, based on the most current advice, before finally wrapping up with a brief rallying cry to fully embrace this phase of life. Overall, this is a rigorous and meticulous guide to everything related to menopause; a full bibliography, which is available on her website, would have added close to 250 pages to the book. Indeed, it’s so exhaustive that it verges on being overwhelming, but Alkon does a tremendous job of breaking down scientific facts for everyday readers; a chapter outlining the differences between oral micronized progesterone versus the much cheaper synthetic version is especially well done. It does fall short regarding a couple of questions readers may still have: Testosterone, which is frequently prescribed, warrants only two pages, which mostly say that there isn’t enough evidence for its effectiveness, and the recent proliferation of telemedicine companies that specifically focus on menopausal care isn’t covered at all. Still, Alkon’s affable voice more than makes up for any potential shortfalls; her smart, thoughtful accounts of her own experiences lend a feeling of camaraderie to the book.

A thoroughly researched, straightforward, and amiable menopause manual.

Review: DAEDALUS IS DEAD by Seamus Sullivan

Sep 222025
 

Library Journal: DEBUT The well-known myth and metaphor of Icarus is that he flew too close to the sun because he was overwhelmed by the freedom of flight or because he didn’t listen to his father Daedalus’s instructions. In this mythic retelling from Daedalus’s perspective, he’s not satisfied with that explanation. He needs to hear the truth from his son’s own lips—even if Daedalus has to descend to hell himself to get his answer. But Daedalus isn’t telling himself the whole truth of his own life or his son’s death because even Hell won’t give Daedalus a chance to justify his crimes to the boy who flew and fell the moment he got the chance. This is part of the current trend of mythic retellings, along with Madeline Miller’s Circe and Jennifer Saint’s Ariadne, telling a familiar story from an entirely different point of view. That this particular myth is wrapped around the even more famous story of tyrannical King Minos, Theseus, and the famous Minotaur adds another facet to this tale of an unreliable man placing the blame for his sins and his crimes on everyone but himself.

VERDICT Readers who enjoy mythic retellings will be riveted by Sullivan’s debut.

Review: QUEEN DEMON by Martha Wells

Sep 192025
 

Library Journal: The second book in “The Rising World” series (a sequel to Witch King) continues to recount the trials and tribulations of Witch King Kai in dual timelines. In the past timeline, Kai’s breaking of the death-magic-corrupted Hierarchs brings forth a world-spanning rebellion that is hurtling toward a precipice of disaster, while in the present timeline, Kai and his found family travel to the ends of their world to prevent a second rise of tyranny. The past timeline shows heartbreak and triumph going hand in hand, while in the present, catastrophe and despair run headlong toward a likely shattered future—no matter who wins or what is lost. Witch King Kai and his heart-sister Queen Demon Ziede try to outrace potential disaster twice over. In the past, they saved the world; in the present, they do their best to keep their old enemies from rising again to tear their work apart.

VERDICT This epic fantasy adventure of found family, lost love, and promises kept, even after death, is a quest for long-buried truths that will keep readers on the edge of their seats from start to finish with its high-stakes adventures.

Review: MAD SISTERS OF ESI by Tashan Mehta

Sep 172025
 

Shelf Awareness: “Mehta’s ambitious, sprawling fantasy will invite comparisons to Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi, not only because its settings are vast, unmapped rambles of wonder and danger but also for the author’s clarity of voice and ability to evoke a precise emotional mood.”

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