Siavahda's Blog, page 33

Must-Have Monday #171

Must-Have Monday is a feature highlighting which of the coming week’s new releases I’m excited for. It is not meant to be a comprehensive list of all books being published that week; only those I’m interested in out of those I’m aware of! The focus is diverse SFF, but other genres sneak in occasionally too.

ELEVEN books this week!

(Books are listed in order of pub date, then Adult SFF, Adult Other, YA SFF, YA Other, MG SFF.)

Ocean's Blood (The Drowning Book 1) by Thelma Mantey
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MC
Published on: 29th January 2024
Goodreads

“He looked newly born, as if the ocean spat him out of its womb, naked and wet, a creature made of waves and tides, of liquid and darkness, something that would slip through his fingers as soon as he tried to grasp it.”

Vindt’s tranquil life as a lord’s son comes to an abrupt end when his homeland is overthrown. Friends, family, his freedom—he loses it all to Singers and their dark song magic. Human in appearance, Singers are a different species. Their powers only fail against the demons hunting them. But even this flaw has a patch: humans with a rare and valuable “trait”. It allows Singers to take over their voice and use it like a weapon. Vindt turned out to possess this trait, and was bound to a Singer by blood. Ever since, he has struggled to break free.

Unexpectedly, a chain of events binds him to a new master, the sly and enigmatic Asche. From day one, their egos clash. Only, their encounter was no coincidence; Asche needs him—but for what? To free the Singers from the curse that plagues them? Or because Asche is on a quest for power, as the Singer’s brethren believe, who are determined to bring him down? Caught in the middle of their fight, Vindt gets yet another unexpected opponent: his wayward feelings for someone he’s supposed to hate.

When Asche’s enemies offer Vindt freedom in exchange for delivering Asche into their hands, Vindt has to make a choice.

CAPTIVE PRINCE meets INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE in this dark, queer fantasy novel about corrupted hearts and the fine line between hatred and obsession.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-29T09:27:00+00:00", "description": "Gods! Harpies! Witches! And even a DRAGON!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-171\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Ocean's Blood (The Drowning Book 1)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Thelma Mantey", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

Sliiiiiiiiightly confused by this blurb, and how it’s giving merpeople and vampire vibes but the magic is about singing and there are demons? Maybe? I’m not sure, but it’s still intriguing. I especially like the cover!

Fallen Thorns by Harvey Oliver Baxter
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MC
Published on: 29th January 2024
Goodreads

‘A great death is in the air.’

Arlo is lost. He thought he had everything figured out. Go to university, fall in love, get a job. But life doesn’t always work like that, and before he has a chance to figure it out, he dies.

In the space of a night, Arlo is plunged into a world of blood and immortality and finds a group of people who swear to always have his back.

Dying is never easy, and they promise him eternal safety.

But something is after him, something no one could have ever predicted.

He craves to figure out his purpose before he falls into something he can never come back from.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-29T09:27:00+00:00", "description": "Gods! Harpies! Witches! And even a DRAGON!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-171\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Fallen Thorns", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Harvey Oliver Baxter", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I’ve heard promising things about this one in indie spaces, and I’ve been more interested in dark academia (which I think this might be???) lately!

Finding Echoes by Foz Meadows
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MC
Published on: 30th January 2024
Goodreads

Snow Kidama speaks to ghosts amongst the local gangs of Charybdis Precinct, isolated from the rest of New Arcadia by the city’s ancient walls. But when his old lover, Gem—a man he thought dead—shows up in need of his services, Snow is forced to reevaluate everything. Snow and Gem must navigate not only a city on the edge of collapse, but also their feelings for each other.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-29T09:27:00+00:00", "description": "Gods! Harpies! Witches! And even a DRAGON!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-171\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Finding Echoes", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Foz Meadows", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

It’s Foz Meadows!!! I will read anything and everything by Foz Meadows!!! I MUST HAVE THIS BOOK WHY IS IT NOT IN MY HANDS YET???

Imago: A Dystopian Gothic by Matthew Zakharuk
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Sapphic nonbinary MC
PoV: 30th January 2024
Goodreads

Tresor Institute accepts only the worthy, and Ada Călinescu is anything but. Intractable, mannish, a child of convicted terrorists, she can at best hope to be overlooked. Yet somehow the Institute accepts her application for transfer. Her ticket to the polar town of Heilung, home of the Institute, arrives free of charge.

Her only chance to forge a brighter future.

Except Heilung welcomes Ada with news of a brutal murder. Militiamen stalk the town, keen to fill their arrest quotas—and Ada knows she could make an easy scapegoat. At every turn the bloody conspiracy follows her, from the halls of Tresor to the arms of a stranger she yearns to make hers. What starts as a dalliance risks putting Ada at odds with the Bureau itself.

And then expulsion will be the least of her concerns.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-29T09:27:00+00:00", "description": "Gods! Harpies! Witches! And even a DRAGON!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-171\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Imago: A Dystopian Gothic", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Matthew Zakharuk", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

Dark academia with toxic love, an Arctic setting, and intricate linguistic magic! And, you know, a Dystopian Gothic, which after Leech (which you should TOTALLY READ!) is a combination I’ve been craving for AGES!

The Cure for Drowning by Loghan Paylor
Genres: Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer and nonbinary MCs
Published on: 30th January 2024
Goodreads

Evocative, magical and luminously written, The Cure for Drowning is not only a brilliant, boundary-pushing love story but a Canadian historical novel that boldly centres queer and non-binary characters in unprecedented ways.

Born Kathleen to an immigrant Irish farming family in southern Ontario, Kit McNair has been a troublesome changeling since, at ten, they fell through the river ice and drowned—only to be nursed back to life by their mother's Celtic magic. A daredevil in boy's clothes, Kit chafes at every aspect of a farmgirl's life, driving that same mother to distraction with worry about where Kit will ever fit in. When Rebekah Kromer, an elegant German-Canadian doctor's daughter, moves to town with her parents in April 1939, Rebekah has no doubt as to who 19-year-old Kit is. Soon she and Kit, and Kit's older brother, Landon, are drawn tight in a love triangle that will tear them and their families apart, and send each of them off on a separate path to war. 

Landon signs up for the Navy. Kit, now known as Christopher, joins the Royal Air Force, becoming a bomber navigator relied on for his luck and courage. Rebekah serves with naval intelligence in Halifax, until one more collision with Landon changes the course of her life and draws her back to the McNair farm—a place where she'd once known love. Fallen on even harder times, the McNairs welcome all the help she is able to give, and she believes she has found peace at last. Until, with the war over, Kit and Landon return home.

Told in the vivid, unforgettable voices of Kit and Rebekah, The Cure for Drowning is a powerfully engrossing novel that imagines a history that is truer than true.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-29T09:27:00+00:00", "description": "Gods! Harpies! Witches! And even a DRAGON!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-171\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The Cure for Drowning", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Loghan Paylor", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I’ve become obsessed with wanting to reading this??? I’m not sure I can pinpoint why; the mention of Celtic magic, and referring to Kit as a changeling, is definitely part of it. I’m crossing my fingers we get at least some magical realism, but even if we don’t, I’ve got to check it out!

The Invocations by Krystal Sutherland
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Published on: 30th January 2024
Goodreads

From the author of New York Times bestseller House of Hollow comes a darkly seductive witchy thriller where, though both men and demons lurk in shadows, girls refuse to go quietly into the night.

Zara Jones believes in magic because the alternative is too painful to bear—that her sister was murdered by a serial killer and there is precisely nothing she can do to change it. If there’s anything Zara cannot stand it's feeling powerless, so she decides she will do whatever it takes—even if that means partaking in the occult—to bring her sister back from the dead.

Jude Wolf might be the daughter of a billionaire, but she is also undeniably cursed. After a deal with a demon went horribly wrong, her soul is now slowly turning necrotic. Flowers and insects die in her wake and monstrous things come to taunt her at night. If Jude can’t find the right someone to fix her mistake, she fears she’ll die very soon.

Enter Emer Bryne: the solution to both Zara and Jude's predicaments. The daughter of a witch, Emer sells spells to women in desperate situations willing to sacrifice a part of their soul in exchange for a bit of power, a bit of magic to change their lives. But Emer has a dark past all her own—and as her former clients are murdered one-by-one, she knows it’s followed her all the way to London.

As Zara and Jude enter Emer's orbit, they'll have to team up to stop the killer—before they each end up next on his list.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-29T09:27:00+00:00", "description": "Gods! Harpies! Witches! And even a DRAGON!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-171\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The Invocations", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Krystal Sutherland", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I really loved Sutherland’s debut, House of Hollow, which was packed full of creepiness and gorgeous prose that I wanted to eat up with a spoon, so I’m expecting great things from Invocations!

Breaker of Fates (Broken Song Verse #1) by Vaela Denarr, Micah Iannandrea
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer brown MC, trans MC, M/M/M polyamory
Published on: 31st January 2024
Goodreads

Perilous quests give rise to heroes. And broken songs call for Chosen Ones to be mended.

Roderick and Keeva, once friends, now orphaned by a dragon’s wrath that fractured the harmony between the great clans, spend their days locked in battle… until they are reunited, realizing that they’re both dating the same guy: Mateo, whose overdue transformation into a dragon is complicated by feelings of self doubt after the disastrous attempt to broker peace.

Choosing to get along is one thing, but forgiving one another—or themselves—for the hurt they’ve inflicted is another. Keeva keeps seeing the face of her dead best friend in her dreams, and Roderick’s suspicion and distrust keep him up at night. Soon, though, a great threat unites them against a common foe.

Someone has stolen a song from the gods, disrupting the tenuously rebuilt harmony of their homeland, and the very beast that tore them apart threatens to be set loose. True heroes of Koor Kosma are required to serve as vessels for the other four godly songs and reforge the divine harmony. Neither Roderick nor Keeva are such heroes, but unless they can unite the divine and broken songs, unless harmony brings the shattered clans together, all will burn.

They are not chosen.
They are not the heroes of this story.
They are broken.
And they must be forgiven.

The Broken Song Duology is a story about queer grief, trauma, forgiveness and finding your place in the world.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-29T09:27:00+00:00", "description": "Gods! Harpies! Witches! And even a DRAGON!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-171\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Breaker of Fates (Broken Song Verse #1)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Vaela Denarr, Micah Iannandrea", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

Polyamory and dragon-shifters with epic fantasy vibes??? Especially with the emphasis on not being Chosen Ones??? Music magic??? HERE FOR IT.

Roxy and Coco: A Novel by Terese Svoboda
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Published on: 1st February 2024
Goodreads

Roxy and Coco, sisters and glamorous harpies (mythical bird women), work to save the world by stopping child abuse, while also trying to evade capture. For readers of Neil Gaiman and Karen Russell. 

Sisters Roxy and Coco are two glamorous harpies—mythical bird women—attempting to outrun extinction and fix the planet by preventing child abuse, one child at a time. 

When Roxy is suddenly attracted to her human supervisor at a social work agency a hundred years too early, Coco is very suspicious. Luring Roxy with his scent, Tim is also on the payroll of a fake conservationist intent on her less-than-legal collection. Coco swoops in to vet Tim, but Interpol is hot on her trail for a series of curious homicides. (Surveillance has a very hard time convincing his boss of what he’s monitoring.) When the sisters find themselves trapped, Chris, a bipolar skateboarding truant, tries his best to rescue them but it’s Stewie, Coco’s colleague, who turns the story inside out. Roxy and Coco climaxes at a gala of egg fanciers who scramble to escape the harpies’ talons. 

Action figure–worthy, for readers of Neil Gaiman and Karen Russell, this modern take on these fabled women touches on mental illness, racism, animal rights, and the rights of children.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-29T09:27:00+00:00", "description": "Gods! Harpies! Witches! And even a DRAGON!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-171\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Roxy and Coco: A Novel", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Terese Svoboda", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

Also emphatically here for harpies going after child abusers and Interpol being Very Confused about it! This sounds like just the right kind of weird and hilarious to be UTTERLY DELIGHTFUL, and I’m so looking forward to it!

Orishas Among Mortals - Collection 1: An Old Gods Story by Antoine Bandele, Arthur Bowling, Fiona McLaren, Callan Brown
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: 1st Feburary 2024
Goodreads

In this three-story collection, you’ll find magical tales of deities among mortals from the Sky Realm, New York City, and Cosmic Planes too far to reach.

Find out if Eshu, the gatekeeping trickster, can hoodwink the creation deity, Obatala, to craft him a human body. If he fails, he may never get in contact with a mortal that needs his help.

Journey with Oya, the windweaving warrior, as she battles to communicate an important message to one of her divine children on Earth. If she can’t, doom will fall upon mankind.

War with Shango, the hero of lightning, who fights alongside Thor against an uncompromising mystic foe. If they can’t come together to face the dark, there may no longer be light for humanity. Can the Orishas succeed?

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-29T09:27:00+00:00", "description": "Gods! Harpies! Witches! And even a DRAGON!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-171\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Orishas Among Mortals - Collection 1: An Old Gods Story", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Antoine Bandele, Arthur Bowling, Fiona McLaren, Callan Brown", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I believe these are stories set in the universe of the TJ Young & the Orishas series, and they sound right up my alley – I love getting to see gods in the modern world, and it’s even better when there are more than one pantheon in play! I approve immensely!

Grieving Gold (The Luminocity Seed, #1) by Daniel McDaniel
Genres: Fantasy, Horror
Published on: 1st February 2024
Goodreads

This brand new epic fantasy, full of strange worlds and dark twists, is perfect for fans of Brandon Sanderson, Fonda Lee, Patrick Rothfuss and George R. R. Martin.

Find your strength in the light, or lose your chains in the darkness.

Three sun gods bathe the city of legends, Luminocity, in their blessed light. The city stands on the decaying ruins of an ancient civilization. Skeletal skyscrapers guard their solemn secrets of forgotten technology and past tragedies.

But under the surface the light dies and shadows began. It is a dark god’s domain, even caged. And he holds his grudges through the eons.

Five fates intertwine, thrown onto the currents of destiny, played like puppets. Will they be able to tear free from their strings?

Laxerion Tama, disowned noble son and heist group mastermind, finds his leisurely life turned upside down. Both his estranged family and an enemy from the past test his strange ability to find lies in the light.

His brother, Val-Gustus Tama, general and golden son, is forced to take responsibility for threats to the city, as war brews on the horizon. Intrigue and betrayal test his resolve and character.

New and outlandish technologies emerge that push the boundaries of morality and the conscience of a young scientist, Ilumi. She arrived in Luminocity from the far north, carrying a dark secret.

A huntress of the depths, Aiana, struggles with her inner demons and the chains of her past.

Dawb, a young urchin struck by grief, searches for monsters prowling the short nights.

And deep down, below all, eldritch things stir in the dark.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-29T09:27:00+00:00", "description": "Gods! Harpies! Witches! And even a DRAGON!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-171\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Grieving Gold (The Luminocity Seed, #1)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Daniel McDaniel", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

This cover is giving me Aztec + El Dorado vibes, and I do not dislike it! …The spider monster (and all the other monsters!) at the bottom and the person being??? I don’t know what??? Grabbed by a glowy thing??? Lowered into…another monster, possibly??? THAT I LIKE LESS! But the blurb sounds so interesting, I don’t think I can resist giving it a go. I’ll let everyone here know if it gives me nightmares!

Illusions of Fire by Nisha Sharma
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Representation: Desi MC
Published on: 4th Feburary 2024
Goodreads

Unlike most of her classmates, Laila Bansal doesn’t roll out of bed and head to school. Instead, she wakes up early and trains in hand-to-hand combat with her adopted aunts who, when not tending to their thriving vineyard, are immortal Rakshasi demons sworn to protect Laila. Laila was born into a mythological bloodline—one infused with magic and entrusted with Lord Krishna’s secrets of the universe. By all appearances, though, Laila leads a peaceful, protected life. 

Then Ahvi, the new boy in town, arrives and immediately seeks out Laila. He happens to be a descendant of a demi-god. Both his and Laila’s origin stories (found in the Mahabharata, an ancient Hindu epic poem about the great war between demi-gods, witches, and demons) come crashing to the forefront. Magical powers are activated, dark forces converge, and it looks like Laila’s quiet town in upstate New York might be the setting of the next epic battle. 

Author Nisha Sharma deftly weaves together romance, magic, and mythology in this contemporary young adult urban fantasy novel.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-29T09:27:00+00:00", "description": "Gods! Harpies! Witches! And even a DRAGON!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-171\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Illusions of Fire", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Nisha Sharma", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I’m a little confused about the pub date for this one, but the Big River company has it listed as coming out on the 4th, so that’s what I’m going with. Confusion over dates aside, this sounds pretty damn cool? All the secrets of the universe? Raised and trained by demons? I adore this premise! So I hope I’m right and we are getting it this week, because I want to read it!

Will you be reading any of these? Let me know!

The post Must-Have Monday #171 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Sunday Soupçons #28

soupçon/ˈsuːpsɒn,ˈsuːpsɒ̃/ noun
1. a very small quantity of something; a slight trace, as of a particular taste or flavor

Sunday Soupçons is where I scribble mini-reviews for books I don’t have the brainspace/eloquence/smarts to write about in depth – or if I just don’t have anything interesting to say beyond I LIKED IT AND YOU SHOULD READ IT TOO!

Two very different books that I enjoyed very much!

Let the Dead Bury the Dead by Allison Epstein
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Historical Fantasy, Speculative Fiction
Representation: MLM MC, bisexual MC, M/M, F/F, sapphic ace-spectrum MC, major Jewish characters
PoV: 3rd-person, past-tense; multiple PoVs
ISBN: B0BSKSTT63
Goodreads

An urgent, immersive alternate history set in an imperial Russia on the brink of disaster, following a surprising cast of characters seeking a better future as Saint Petersburg struggles in the wake of Napoleon’s failed invasion.

Saint Petersburg, 1812. Russian forces have defeated Napoleon at great cost, and the Tsar's empire is once again at peace. Sasha, a captain in the imperial army, returns home to Grand Duke Felix, the disgraced second son of the Tsar and his irrepressibly charming lover, but their reunion is quickly interrupted. Everything changes with the arrival of Sofia, a mysteriously persuasive figure whose disruptive presence Sasha suspects to be something more than human. Felix, insisting that Sasha's old-fashioned superstitions are misplaced, takes Sofia into his confidence—a connection that quickly becomes both personal and political. On her incendiary advice, Felix confronts his father about the brutal conditions of the common people in the aftermath of the war, to disastrous results, separating him from Sasha and setting him on a collision course with a vocal group of dissidents: the Koalitsiya.

Meanwhile, the Koalitsiya plan to gridlock Saint Petersburg with a city-wide strike in hopes of awakening the upper classes to the grim realities of the laboring people's circumstances. Marya, a resourceful sometimes-thief and trusted lieutenant of the Koalitsiya, also falls under Sofia's spell, and allied with Felix and her fellow revolutionaries, finds herself in the middle of a battle she could never have predicted. As Sofia’s influence grows and rising tensions threaten the Tsar’s peace, Sasha, Felix, and Marya are forced to choose between the ideals they hold close and the people they love.

Allison Epstein combines cleverly constructed plot with unforgettable characters in this exuberant historical page-turner, intercut with fractured retellings of traditional Eastern European folk stories that are equal parts deadly dark and slyly illuminating. Vividly written and emotionally intense, Let the Dead Bury the Dead reminds us that the concerns of the past aren't quite as far behind us as we like to believe.

I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-28T15:38:51+00:00", "description": "A maybe-fantastical historical novel in Tsarist Russia, and a beautiful but horrifying queer awakening in a magical dystopia.", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/sunday-soupcons-28\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Let the Dead Bury the Dead", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Allison Epstein", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "B0BSKSTT63" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": 4.5, "bestRating": "5" }}

Let the Dead Bury the Dead is a stunningly written historical novel, a story of a fictional attempted-revolution inspired by some of Russia’s real history. Epstein is, frankly, a word-wizard; her prose is absolutely gorgeous, and she knows exactly how to spin language into a spell that’ll make you ache for the beauty of it. Case in point: I don’t read a lot of historical fiction, and I definitely don’t read historical fiction about brutally cold places – not at all my favourite kind of setting! – but my gods, I just couldn’t resist Epstein’s writing.

Or the sheer amount of yearning in this book, all of which is queer, all of which cuts like a blade of crystallized honey. If there were awards given out for Feels, Epstein would take home the gold. My gods!

My favourite parts were the rewritten (or completely original?) fairytales Epstein included, which more or less divided the book into Parts. I adored those – some of them were even queer! – and I would happily devour a short story collection, if Epstein decided to write one. Especially if she wanted to write a collection of folklore-ish stories. Honestly, I would say Let the Dead Bury the Dead is worth it just for those handful of fairytales, but pretty much everything else about this book is also fantastic.

The characters are so believably complex, as is the situation; Epstein perfectly captures the need for and passion of revolution, and how easy it is for that to go wrong, or be misled – or maybe it would be better to say, how easy it is for that to be poisoned, by forceful personalities. By which I really mean Sofia, the maybe-maybe-not vila (a kind of nature spirit/faerie analogue from Slavic mythology), who burns like ice at the heart of this novel. Usually I find it frustrating when authors won’t commit to confirming whether or not the fantastical elements are in fact fantastical…but a) I was pretty satisfied that Sofia wasn’t human, and b) even if she was, she’s still a powerfully compelling character, drawing everyone and everything into her web of manipulation. She’s charismatic in a way that characters are often described as being, but often doesn’t come through to the reader; here, Epstein absolutely pulled it off. Sofia’s the kind of character you can’t look away from, even when your smarter self is screaming to get the hell away from her!

My one real hesitation with this story was with Marya’s sexuality; in the beginning, she seemed to be on the ace spectrum (and in a happy sapphic relationship despite that, which delighted me!) Obviously, there are plenty of ace people who still enjoy sex, but it’s made pretty clear that Marya is not one of them. And yet, she has several intensely sexual encounters with Sofia. I wasn’t really sure how to take that – is it more proof that Sofia isn’t human, and is seducing Marya magically? Did Epstein mishandle her asexual rep? Or can we just hand-wave it as ‘sexuality is complicated’, which is, after all, perfectly true? I’m ace myself, and just…wasn’t sure what the takeaway was supposed to be.

Regardless, this is a seriously great book that I strongly recommend to anyone who likes historical fiction in this time period/setting, especially if they’d also like complicated queer love and yearning.

A note on the ending: [View post to see spoiler]

The Midnight Lie (The Midnight Lie, #1) by Marie Rutkoski
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Sapphic MC, sapphic love interest, F/F
PoV: First-person, present-tense
ISBN: 9780374306397
Goodreads

Where Nirrim lives, crime abounds, a harsh tribunal rules, and society’s pleasures are reserved for the High Kith. Life in the Ward is grim and punishing. People of her low status are forbidden from sampling sweets or wearing colors. You either follow the rules, or pay a tithe and suffer the consequences.

Nirrim keeps her head down and a dangerous secret close to her chest.

But then she encounters Sid, a rakish traveler from far away who whispers rumors that the High Caste possesses magic. Sid tempts Nirrim to seek that magic for herself. But to do that, Nirrim must surrender her old life. She must place her trust in this sly stranger who asks, above all, not to be trusted.

Set in the world of the New York Times–bestselling Winner’s Trilogy, beloved author Marie Rutkoski returns with an epic LGBTQ romantic fantasy about learning to free ourselves from the lies others tell us—and the lies we tell ourselves.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-28T15:38:51+00:00", "description": "A maybe-fantastical historical novel in Tsarist Russia, and a beautiful but horrifying queer awakening in a magical dystopia.", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/sunday-soupcons-28\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The Midnight Lie (The Midnight Lie, #1)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Marie Rutkoski", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "9780374306397" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": 5, "bestRating": "5" }}

This was my second time reading Midnight Lie, and I enjoyed it even more this time around – I know that I gave it four stars last time, and this reread has bumped it up to five.

I just love it so much!

And so much of that is down to the beauty of the prose, which seems doubly impressive because the writing style is also kept very simple – it feels undecorated, almost plain, and yet Rutkoski’s word choices and phrasing are just exquisite. It reminds me of when people talk about the difference between ‘vulgar’ ostentation versus luxurious elegance; don’t get me wrong, I am all for going full-on ostentatious – I am the most magpie of magpies when it comes to decadent prose! – but Midnight Lie doesn’t need to be gaudy to hypnotise. Its enchantment comes in part from its restraint, from using a single word absolutely perfectly where another writer might use ten.

There is plenty of beauty to describe – strange, whimsical magic, like drinks that make you float and trees that provide tiny prophecies on scraps of bark. The high caste mentioned in the blurb – known as High Kith – live rich, decadent lives surrounded by pretty – and pretty shallow and meaningless – magics, the source of which is mysterious, but the descriptions of which are gorgeous. You can’t help but be swept up in them, spellbound and delighted. Especially if you’re as shallow a reader as me, who just loves for things to be pretty.

But Rutkoski plays the same mindfuck-trick that the best horror authors do, because the beauty she crafts – both the imagery itself, and the prose used to create it – makes us, naturally, enjoy it. And so when the horrifying truth behind the magic is revealed…we’ve been made kind of complicit. Because we enjoyed it.

Do you see?

I enjoyed the romance fine, and am very intrigued to see what will happen with it in the sequel, but where Midnight Lie really shines for me is in its depiction of…it’s abuse, but it’s not just abuse; it’s the mindset of someone who doesn’t even realise they’re being abused. I’m not sure you can even call it gaslighting, strictly speaking, because gaslighting is when people are telling you the things you think/feel are not true, and that’s not quite Nirrim’s situation. Nirrim genuinely believes that she’s loved, and doesn’t see how she’s being manipulated by her abuser; it’s not that she thinks something is wrong and is being told otherwise. If anything, the reverse; once Sid enters the picture, Nirrim thinks everything’s great, but is being told (by Sid, and then a few others) that things are really not fine. Specifically, the way she’s being treated is Not Okay At All.

And I hope Rutkoski’s not writing from experience, but Nirrim’s thoughts and feelings on all of this are just…so terrifyingly spot-on, and heartbreaking. There were a lot of moments when I had to put the book down for a while because I just couldn’t handle how much Nirrim was being hurt and manipulated without even realising it was happening. It’s very clear to the reader (at least, it was to this reader – I don’t know if it’s as obvious to readers who haven’t experienced anything similar) and that makes it more heart-wrenching, more rage-inducing, than it would if Nirrim was aware of what was happening. You can’t help but feel so protective of Nirrim.

Although she doesn’t really need anyone else’s protection, once she understands the situation.

Something I really want to comment on is – there’s this whole side-plot, or mini-plot, involving a man who thinks he’s in love with Nirrim. And the way Nirrim just…goes along with it, including letting him kiss her and have sex with her (thankfully fade-to-black, because wow I did not want to read that) is…so awful, but so understandable. This guy has power over her – and gets more – and refuses to acknowledge that; is, in fact, a pretty perfect example of a Nice GuyTM, the kind of utter, disgusting garbage who ought to be drop-kicked into the sun.

And I wanted to comment on it because Rutkoski is so damn aware of power dynamics and – not patriarchy in this setting, exactly, but still, the gross beliefs and expectations cis men so often have about women and sex and their right to both. It’s another kind of abuse, another kind of awfulness, and it’s dealt with so well, handled so deftly. I appreciated it even while I hated that Nirrim was stuck in the middle of it.

I’m making it sound terribly grim…and, well, I guess it is: Nirrim’s living in a horrible society with horrible secrets. But this is a beautiful book nonetheless; one about waking up to your abuse and refusing to put up with it any more, refusing any excuses from the ones who hurt you. It’s about digging for the truth and not giving up until you get it. It’s about finding your power, in half a dozen different ways. It’s a queer awakening story; it’s an awakening-to-the-world story, realising that you’ve been raised in a cage and kept ignorant and that the world is so big and has so much to offer, and you do not have to put up with things being terrible.

I don’t know. This got very rambly and I’m not sure it’s super coherent. I loved this book, is what it comes down to, and I plan on diving into the sequel immediately.

What have you been reading this week?

The post Sunday Soupçons #28 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

I Can’t Wait For…Finding Echoes by Foz Meadows

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted over at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about but haven’t yet read. Most of the time they’re books that have yet to be released, but not always. It’s based on the Waiting on Wednesday meme, which was originally hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. 

This week my Can’t-Wait-For Book is Finding Echoes by Foz Meadows!

Finding Echoes by Foz Meadows
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MC
Published on: 30th January 2024
Goodreads

"Show me a city of walls, and I'll show you a city of tunnels."

Snow Kidama speaks to ghosts amongst the local gangs of Charybdis Precinct, isolated from the rest of New Arcadia by the city's ancient walls. But when his old lover, Gem--a man he thought dead--shows up in need of his services, Snow is forced to reevaluate everything. Snow and Gem must navigate not only their feelings for each other, but a political plot bigger than both of them and a drug-ridden city on the edge of collapse.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-24T15:27:10+00:00", "description": "NEW NOVELLA FROM FOZ MEADOWS!!!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/i-cant-wait-for-finding-echoes-by-foz-meadows\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Finding Echoes", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Foz Meadows", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

Honestly, I don’t even care what this novella’s about – it’s by Foz Meadows, which means it’s automatically on my Must-Have list!

I’ve loved absolutely every one of Meadows’ novels, from the Manifold Worlds duology (a criminally under-known portal fantasy; look for the original editions with the beautiful Julie Dillon covers, if you can find them) to the Tithenai Chronicles (aka A Strange and Stubborn Endurance and All the Hidden Paths, reviewed here and here respectively)! All of their work is rich and gorgeous and queer as fuck, with fabulous worldbuilding and storytelling that never talks down to the reader; honestly, I could read and reread their books endlessly.

So a new novella??? GIMME! I really don’t care what it’s about. I’d read Meadows’ shopping list and be grateful for the privilege, at this point. And this isn’t a shopping list; we have ghost-talkers and estranged lovers (where one thought the other was DEAD, how does that happen?!) and POLITICS, which, hi, if you’re new to Meadows, they write the best politics!

I’m also excited by this being A Tale of New Arcadia; that seems to imply that it might be the start of a series – either if it sells well, and/or if Meadows decides to write more in this verse. I’m hopeful, just because more Meadows is always a good thing!!!

Actually getting hold of Finding Echoes might be slightly complicated – it’s being published by Neon Hemlock, who publish wonderfully weird things, but are not always great at publicising pub dates and things. (Don’t @ me, NH, it’s true and it’s very annoying.) You can currently preorder the paperback from Neon Hemlock’s website, where no pub date is listed; the book’s Big River listing says it should be out on the 30th (that’s next week!!!) There’s no preorder available for an ebook edition yet, but fingers crossed we get one on or around the 30th!

Regardless, no matter how many hoops I have to jump through, I will get my hands on this! And I strongly suggest you do the same!

The post I Can’t Wait For…Finding Echoes by Foz Meadows appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

10 Books I Completely Failed to Read Last Year

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish and is now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. Check out upcoming Top Ten themes on Jana’s blog!

This week’s prompt is all about the books we managed not to read in 2023, despite absolutely meaning to! Narrowing it down to just ten was pretty hard…

The Seep by Chana Porter
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Sapphic trans MC
Goodreads

Trina Goldberg-Oneka is a trans woman whose life is irreversibly altered in the wake of a gentle—but nonetheless world-changing—invasion by an alien entity calling itself The Seep. Through The Seep, everything is connected. Capitalism falls, hierarchies and barriers are broken down; if something can be imagined, it is possible.

Trina and her wife, Deeba, live blissfully under The Seep’s utopian influence—until Deeba begins to imagine what it might be like to be reborn as a baby, which will give her the chance at an even better life. Using Seep-tech to make this dream a reality, Deeba moves on to a new existence, leaving Trina devastated.

Heartbroken and deep into an alcoholic binge, Trina chases after a young boy she encounters, embarking on an unexpected quest. In her attempt to save him from The Seep, she will confront not only one of its most avid devotees, but the terrifying void that Deeba has left behind.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-23T12:55:21+00:00", "description": "We never quite manage to read all the books we want to read, do we?", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/10-books-i-completely-failed-to-read-last-year\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The Seep", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Chana Porter", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

GAH. How did I not get to This??? I loved Porter’s The Thick and the Lean, and The Seep is her only other book so far! It’s hard to find authors whose prose I really love, and The Seep sounds honestly very cool. But also kinda tragic? That might be why I’m hesitating to push it to the top of the tbr…

Cold Fire (Spiritwalker, #2) by Kate Elliott
Genres: Fantasy, Epic Fantasy
Representation: Brown MCs
Goodreads

Only one thing is certain: when Hallows' Night comes, the Wild Hunt will ride - and it feeds on mortal blood.

Cat and her cousin Bee are caught in a maze of intrigue, treachery, and magic. Everyone seems to want something from them: the Cold Mages are trying to take them prisoner, and the warlord who wants to conquer all of Europa seems sure they have a special destiny to aid him whether they want to or not. Worse, hidden powers deep in the spirit world are rising, and they are the most dangerous of all. Cat must seek allies and figure out who she can trust in order to save the ones she loves. For if she doesn't, everything will be lost.

Note: Bonus chapter 31.5 is located on the author's website. You can find it here: http://www.kateelliott.com/default.as...

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-23T12:55:21+00:00", "description": "We never quite manage to read all the books we want to read, do we?", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/10-books-i-completely-failed-to-read-last-year\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Cold Fire (Spiritwalker, #2)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Kate Elliott", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I loved the first book in this trilogy, and I need to know how the story continues! Especially since Elliot is releasing a collection of short stories set in this verse later this year, if I remember correctly! There’s no point at all in pouncing on that before I’ve finished reading the trilogy!

Ice Song by Kirsten Imani Kasai
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Genderfluid MC
Goodreads

“Reminiscent of Ursula Le Guin’s paradigm-shattering The Left Hand of Darkness , this piercingly moving story belongs in most fantasy collections.” — Library Journal

There are secrets beneath her skin.

Sorykah Minuit is a scholar, an engineer, and the sole woman aboard an ice-drilling submarine in the frozen land of the Sigue. What no one knows is that she is also a one who can switch genders suddenly, a rare corporeal deviance universally met with fascination and superstition and all too often punished by harassment or death.

Sorykah’s infant twins, Leander and Ayeda, have inherited their mother’s Trader genes. When a wealthy, reclusive madman known as the Collector abducts the babies to use in his dreadful experiments, Sorykah and her male alter-ego, Soryk, must cross icy wastes and a primeval forest to get them back. Complicating the dangerous journey is the fact that Sorykah and Soryk do not share Each disorienting transformation is like awakening with a jolt from a deep and dreamless sleep.

The world through which the alternating lives of Sorykah and Soryk travel is both familiar and surreal. Environmental degradation and genetic mutation run amok; humans have been distorted into animals and animal bodies cloak a wild humanity. But it is also a world of unexpected beauty and wonder, where kindness and love endure amid the ruins. Alluring, intense, and gorgeously rendered, Ice Song is a remarkable debut by a fiercely original new writer.

Praise for Ice Song

“A stunning debut fantasy about love and the ties of blood.” —Armchair Interviews

“Kasai’s debut is a boldly adventurous tale depicting a richly detailed world. The aspect of Traders shifting gender brings Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness to mind, while the activities on Chen’s island are more reminiscent of Laurell K. Hamilton’s Meredith Gentry novels.” — Booklist

“Ice Song is definitely a compelling read, largely due to the fact that Sorykah is such a well-developed character. She has an equally intense and complex sense of love and resentment for her children. And the fact that she exists between the world of humans and the mutants is also a source of conflict for her character . . . Ice Song is a near-perfect combination of fantasy, great storytelling and social commentary.” — Philadelphia Gay News

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-23T12:55:21+00:00", "description": "We never quite manage to read all the books we want to read, do we?", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/10-books-i-completely-failed-to-read-last-year\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Ice Song", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Kirsten Imani Kasai", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

Shapeshifters! Shapeshifters who shift gender! Also: parents questing to rescue their kids! This ticks so many of my buttons – it’s waiting for me at the top of my tbr – I really have no explanation for how I failed to get to it. HOPEFULLY THIS YEAR!

In Charm's Way (The Witches of Thistle Grove, #4) by Lana Harper
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: F/F
Goodreads

A witch struggling to regain what she has lost casts a forbidden spell—only to discover much more than she expected, in this enchanting new rom-com by New York Times bestselling author Lana Harper.

Six months after having been hit by a power surge that nearly obliterated her memory, Delilah Harlow is still picking up the pieces. Her once diamond-sharp mind has become shaky and unreliable, and bristly, self-sufficient Delilah is forced to rely on friends, family, and her raven familiar for help. In an effort to reclaim her wits and former independence, she casts a dangerous blood spell meant to harness power with healing capacities.

While the spell does restore clarity, it also unexpectedly turns Delilah into an irresistible beacon for the kind of malevolent supernatural creatures that have never before ventured into Thistle Grove. One night—just as things are about to go terribly sideways with a rogue succubus—a mysterious stranger appears in the nick of time to save Delilah's soul.

Gorgeous, sultry, and as dangerous as the knives she carries, Catriona Quinn is a hunter of monsters—and half-human, half-fae herself, she is the kind of sly and morally gray creature Delilah would normally find horrifying. Though Delilah balks at the idea of a partnership, she has no choice but to roll the dice on their collaboration. As the two delve deeper into the power that underlies Thistle Grove, they uncover not only the town's hidden history but also a risky attraction that could upend Delilah's entire life.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-23T12:55:21+00:00", "description": "We never quite manage to read all the books we want to read, do we?", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/10-books-i-completely-failed-to-read-last-year\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "In Charm's Way (The Witches of Thistle Grove, #4)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Lana Harper", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I was so looking forward to this, because the existence of monster hunters and fae implies a massive expansion of the worldbuilding for this series! Plus, Witches of Thistle Grove has been my cosy-but-interesting series (not including book 3, which was great, but didn’t rock the nonbinary rep). Despite a lot of mood-reading last year, I guess I wasn’t often in the right mood for cosy-but-interesting-and-new – rereads of old faves were easier on my brain. But I very much want to get to this one!

Shorefall (The Founders Trilogy, #2) by Robert Jackson Bennett
Genres: Fantasy
Representation: Sapphic MC
Goodreads

The upstart firm Foundryside is struggling to make it. Orso Igancio and his star employee, former thief Sancia Grado, are accomplishing brilliant things with scriving, the magical art of encoding sentience into everyday objects, but it's not enough. The massive merchant houses of Tevanne won't tolerate competition, and they're willing to do anything to crush Foundryside.

But even the merchant houses of Tevanne might have met their match. An immensely powerful and deadly entity has been resurrected in the shadows of Tevanne, one that's not interested in wealth or trade routes: a hierophant, one of the ancient practitioners of scriving. And he has a great fascination for Foundryside, and its employees - especially Sancia.

Now Sancia and the rest of Foundryside must race to combat this new menace, which means understanding the origins of scriving itself - before the hierophant burns Tevanne to the ground.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-23T12:55:21+00:00", "description": "We never quite manage to read all the books we want to read, do we?", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/10-books-i-completely-failed-to-read-last-year\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Shorefall (The Founders Trilogy, #2)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Robert Jackson Bennett", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

Foundryside, the first book, didn’t blow one away at first…but the last chunk of the book was epic, and I’d really like to check out the rest of the trilogy. Especially after having just finished Tainted Cup, book one of Bennett’s new series (review to come) I’m really craving more of his incredible worldbuilding!

City of Refuge (Maya Greenwood, #3) by Starhawk
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, Science Fantasy
Representation: QBIPOC cast
Goodreads

Every city needs three things: a plaza, a hearth, and a sacred tree...

In the violent, desperate world of 2048, eco-catastrophes and societal breakdown have left the country splintered. Yet amidst the ruins stands a green and flourishing city where four things are sacred—Air, Fire, Water, and Earth. When the ruthless Stewards of the Southlands invade, the people of Califia defeat them using nonviolence and magic. But they’ll be back, unless the northerners can liberate the Southlands first.

Healer Madrone struggles to repair the wounds of war and deprivation. Soldier/defector River leads an Army of Liberation to the south. Bird, musician turned guerrilla, longs to return to the fight, but now he’s pledged to deeper powers. How can they build a new world when people are so deeply wounded by the old?

Madrone has a dream... Build a city of refuge in the heartland of the enemy.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-23T12:55:21+00:00", "description": "We never quite manage to read all the books we want to read, do we?", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/10-books-i-completely-failed-to-read-last-year\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "City of Refuge (Maya Greenwood, #3)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Starhawk", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I want to read this so much…The Fifth Sacred Thing, the book that precedes this one, is not just an all-time fave, but a book that’s shaped so much of my life. I’m just dreading, or at least well aware of, how many spoons it’s going to take to tackle City of Refuge. Because this book tackles a lot – including the one thing harder than revolution: the rebuilding that comes after the revolution. And I’ve felt so fragile – for a long time now, it seems like – that I don’t feel up to the task.

But damn it, I will read this book!!! I just…don’t know when.

Painted Devils (Little Thieves, #2) by Margaret Owen
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Demisexual-coded MC, demisexual-coded love interest, secondary sapphic characters and F/F or wlw, very minor nonbinary characters, queernorm world
Goodreads

Let’s get one thing straight—Vanja Schmidt wasn’t trying to start a cult.

After taking down a corrupt margrave, breaking a deadly curse, and finding romance with the vexingly scrupulous Junior Prefect Emeric Conrad, Vanja had one great mystery left: her long-lost birth family… and if they would welcome a thief. But in her search for an honest trade, she hit trouble and invented a god, the Scarlet Maiden, to scam her way out. Now, that lie is growing out of control—especially when Emeric arrives to investigate, and the Scarlet Maiden manifests to claim him as a virgin sacrifice.

For his final test to become a prefect, Emeric must determine if Vanja is guilty of serious fraud, or if the Scarlet Maiden—and her claim to him—are genuine. Meanwhile, Vanja is chasing an alternative sacrifice that may be their way out. The hunt leads her not only into the lairs of monsters and the paths of gods, but the ties of her past. And with what should be the simplest way to save Emeric hanging over their heads, he and Vanja must face a more dangerous question: Is there a future for a thief and a prefect, and at what price?

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-23T12:55:21+00:00", "description": "We never quite manage to read all the books we want to read, do we?", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/10-books-i-completely-failed-to-read-last-year\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Painted Devils (Little Thieves, #2)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Margaret Owen", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

Margaret Owens is one of my favourite authors, so I have no idea how Painted Devils slipped through my fingers! I have a copy waiting to be read, but somehow I just didn’t get to it (despite reading the first couple of chapters and majorly enjoying them!) Gotta make time for this.

Redemptor (Raybearer, #2) by Jordan Ifueko
Genres: Fantasy, High Fantasy
Representation: African-inspired setting & cast, major asexual character, minor gay characters
Goodreads

For the first time, an Empress Redemptor sits on Aritsar's throne. To appease the sinister spirits of the dead, Tarisai must now anoint a council of her own, coming into her full power as a Raybearer. She must then descend into the Underworld, a sacrifice to end all future atrocities.

Tarisai is determined to survive. Or at least, that's what she tells her increasingly distant circle of friends. Months into her shaky reign as empress, child spirits haunt her, demanding that she pay for past sins of the empire.

With the lives of her loved ones on the line, assassination attempts from unknown quarters, and a handsome new stranger she can't quite trust . . . Tarisai fears the pressure may consume her. But in this finale to the Raybearer duology, Tarisai must learn whether to die for justice . . . or to live for it.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-23T12:55:21+00:00", "description": "We never quite manage to read all the books we want to read, do we?", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/10-books-i-completely-failed-to-read-last-year\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Redemptor (Raybearer, #2)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Jordan Ifueko", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I loved the first book in this series so much…and somehow I still have not read the sequel. I don’t think it helps that so many readers I know have said that this just doesn’t live up to the first book… but that’s something I want to determine for myself! My opinion often differs from the majority; hopefully it will this time too.

The Queens of Innis Lear (Innis Lear, #1) by Tessa Gratton
Genres: Fantasy
Goodreads

A kingdom at risk, a crown divided, a family drenched in blood.

The erratic decisions of a prophecy-obsessed king have drained Innis Lear of its wild magic, leaving behind a trail of barren crops and despondent subjects. Enemy nations circle the once-bountiful isle, sensing its growing vulnerability, hungry to control the ideal port for all trade routes.

The king's three daughters—battle-hungry Gaela, master manipulator Reagan, and restrained, starblessed Elia—know the realm's only chance of resurrection is to crown a new sovereign, proving a strong hand can resurrect magic and defend itself. But their father will not choose an heir until the longest night of the year, when prophecies align and a poison ritual can be enacted.

Refusing to leave their future in the hands of blind faith, the daughters of Innis Lear prepare for war—but regardless of who wins the crown, the shores of Innis will weep the blood of a house divided.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-23T12:55:21+00:00", "description": "We never quite manage to read all the books we want to read, do we?", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/10-books-i-completely-failed-to-read-last-year\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The Queens of Innis Lear (Innis Lear, #1)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Tessa Gratton", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

Some of my all-time faves are Tessa Gratton’s weird, dark, queer YAs (like Night Shine and Moon Dark Smile) so it’s not that weird that I want to try out their Adult stuff! Especially since Queens is most heartily recommended by my book-bestie. I’m not especially interested in Shakespeare retellings, but I’ve heard nothing but good things about this one, from every corner – I just need to sit down and read it!

The Jaguar Path (The Songs of the Drowned, #2) by Anna Stephens
Genres: Fantasy, High Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Central American-coded cast, Deaf MC, M/M, bi/pansexual MC, queernorm world
Goodreads

The Empire of Songs reigns supreme. Across all the lands of Ixachipan, its hypnotic, magical music sounds. Those who battled against the Empire have been enslaved and dispersed, taken far from their friends and their homes.

In the Singing City, Xessa must fight for the entertainment of her captors. Lilla and thousands of warriors are trained to serve as weapons for their enemies. And Tayan is trapped at the heart of the Empire’s power and magic, where the ruthless Enet’s ambition is ever growing.
Each of them harbours a secret hope, waiting for a chance to strike at the Empire from within.

But first they must overcome their own desires. Power can seduce as well as crush. And, in exchange for their loyalty, the Empire promises much.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-23T12:55:21+00:00", "description": "We never quite manage to read all the books we want to read, do we?", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/10-books-i-completely-failed-to-read-last-year\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The Jaguar Path (The Songs of the Drowned, #2)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Anna Stephens", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I think this is another case of, I do not feel strong enough to tackle this book. I loved the first one, but it was properly grimdark, and I have every reason to think this is going to be even darker. How does one get into the right headspace for dark reads, readers of dark things??? I’ll have to figure it out fast, because the third and final book is coming out pretty soon!

That makes 10! Are any of these on your tbr? Have you read them already? Let me know your thoughts!

The post 10 Books I Completely Failed to Read Last Year appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Must-Have Monday #170

Must-Have Monday is a feature highlighting which of the coming week’s new releases I’m excited for. It is not meant to be a comprehensive list of all books being published that week; only those I’m interested in out of those I’m aware of! The focus is diverse SFF, but other genres sneak in occasionally too.

SEVEN books this week!

(Books are listed in order of pub date, then Adult SFF, Adult Other, YA SFF, YA Other, MG SFF.)

Womb City by Tlotlo Tsamaase
Genres: Sci Fi
Representation: Botswanan cast & setting
Published on: 23rd January 2024
Goodreads

WOMB CITY imagines a dark and deadly future Botswana, rich with culture and true folklore, which begs the question: how far must one go to destroy the structures of inequality upon which a society was founded? How far must a mother go to save the life of her child?

Nelah seems to have it all: wealth, fame, a husband, and a child on the way. But in a body her husband controls via microchip and the tailspin of a loveless marriage, her hopes and dreams come to a devastating halt. A drug-fueled night of celebration ends in a hit-and-run. To dodge a sentencing in a society that favors men, Nelah and her side-piece, Janith Koshal, finish the victim off and bury the body.

But the secret claws its way into Nelah's life from the grave. As her victim's vengeful ghost begins exacting a bloody revenge on everyone Nelah holds dear, she'll have to unravel her society's terrible secrets to stop those in power, and become a monster unlike any other to quench the ghost's violent thirst.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-22T09:05:00+00:00", "description": "A Botswanan dystopia, wicked sapphics, and dangerous quests into Faerie!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-170\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Womb City", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Tlotlo Tsamaase", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

This sounds dark as hell, but between it being published by Erewhon Press (who I’d trust with my life) and this review over on Ancillary Reviews, I think I have to read it. I’m just gonna need to have kitten videos ready to watch between chapter breaks!

Exordia by Seth Dickinson
Genres: Sci Fi, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Kurdish MCs, bisexual Black-Hispanic MC, sapphic Black-Filipino MC, magor Chinese sapphic character, pre-F/F
Published on: 23rd January 2024
Goodreads

Award-winning author Seth Dickinson explodes into a new genre with this new standalone novel, a science fiction debut.

“Anna, I came to Earth tracking a very old story, a story that goes back to the dawn of time. it’s very unlikely that you’ll die right now. It wouldn’t be narratively complete.”

Anna Sinjari—refugee, survivor of genocide, disaffected office worker—has a close encounter that reveals universe-threatening stakes. While humanity reels from disaster, she must join a small team of civilians, soldiers, and scientists to investigate a mysterious broadcast and unknowable horror. If they can manage to face their own demons, they just might save the world.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-22T09:05:00+00:00", "description": "A Botswanan dystopia, wicked sapphics, and dangerous quests into Faerie!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-170\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Exordia", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Seth Dickinson", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

To put it simply, this blew me the fuck away. Dickinson is evidently just as incredible writing scifi as he is fantasy, which would seem unfair if it didn’t mean we get to enjoy his stories in both genres now!

My review (which contains links to much better reviews!)

Scissor Sisters by Rae Knowles, April Yates, Stephanie Ellis, Daniella Batsheva
Genres: Horror, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Sapphic MCs
Published on: 23rd January 2024
Goodreads

21 tales of sapphic villains, curated by April Yates and Rae Knowles.

Featuring the work of:
Hatteras Mange
Anastasia Dziekan
Ariel Marken Jack
Maerwynn Blackwood
Avra Margariti
Grace R. Reynolds
Evelyn Freeling
Hailey Piper
T.O. King
M.S. Dean
Chloe Spencer
Mae Murray
L.R. Stuart
Alex Luceli Jiménez
Cheyanne Brabo
Luc Diamant
Alyssa Lennander
Anya Leigh Josephs
Lindz McLeod
Caitlin Marceau
Shelly Lavigne.
And a bonus tale from Eric Raglin

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-22T09:05:00+00:00", "description": "A Botswanan dystopia, wicked sapphics, and dangerous quests into Faerie!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-170\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Scissor Sisters", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Rae Knowles, April Yates, Stephanie Ellis, Daniella Batsheva", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

Wicked sapphics? EVIL sapphics?? Excuse me, why is this not in my hands already??? RUDE!

(Also it that title didn’t make you giggle-snort, I don’t know what will!)

The Dirt in Our Skin by J.J. Anselmi
Genres: Queer Protagonists
Representation: Bisexual MC/s, M/M
Published on: 23rd January 2024
Goodreads

When Ryan and Jason discover the destructive beauty of freestyle BMX, it’s a definitive before-and-after moment for them.

The two riders gravitate to the freedom and raw aggression of trail riding as a way of coping with their tumultuous home lives: Ryan’s domineering father and Jason's father's suicide.

The boys prove themselves within the exclusive East Coast BMX scene. They're drawn deeper into the culture when they fall in with a group of older pros who are part of a subterranean world of bisexuality and sadistic humor. As Ryan and Jason fight to preserve their relationship, they must navigate their own emerging sexuality and feelings for one another. The death-drive urge to ride massive jumps makes perfect sense to them, but life outside of riding spills over at the edges.

The Dirt in Our Skin is a coming-of-age novel and artistic tribute to an activity that’s more lifestyle than sport. It’s a book of blurred lines: between friendship and love, humor and abuse, art and sport, fiction and nonfiction, and much more.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-22T09:05:00+00:00", "description": "A Botswanan dystopia, wicked sapphics, and dangerous quests into Faerie!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-170\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The Dirt in Our Skin", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "J.J. Anselmi", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I know nothing about BMX-ing, but this is giving me Summer Sons vibes (albeit without the supernatural elements), so I want to give it a try!

Into the Sunken City by Dinesh Thiru
Genres: Fantasy
Representation: Brown MC
Published on: 23rd January 2024
Goodreads

"Steal-your-breath adventure." —Marissa Meyer, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Lunar Chronicles

Perfect for fans of Fable and House of Salt and Sorrows, this spectacular YA fantasy adventure debut is like nothing else, featuring a unique twist on Treasure Island, a magnetic second chance romance, and a thrilling heist where the reward is great—but the risks are even greater.

In the slowly sinking city of Coconino, Arizona, the days are long, the money is tight, and the rain never stops.

For Jin Haldar, this life is nothing new—ever since her father died in a diving accident, she’s barely made ends meet for her and her younger sister, Thara.

Enter Bhili: a drifter who offers Jin and Thara the score of a lifetime—a massive stash of gold hidden in the sunken ruins of Las Vegas.

Jin knows it’s too dangerous. She stopped diving after her father’s accident. But when her sister decides to go, Jin’s left with only one choice: to go with her.

A ragtag crew is assembled—including Jin’s annoyingly hot ex-boyfriend. From there, a high-stakes heist ensues that’s beyond even Jin’s wildest fears. Crumbling ruins, sea beasts, corsairs, and a mysterious figure named João Silva all lie in wait. To survive, Jin will have to do what she promised herself she’d never do again: dive.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-22T09:05:00+00:00", "description": "A Botswanan dystopia, wicked sapphics, and dangerous quests into Faerie!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-170\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Into the Sunken City", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Dinesh Thiru", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I’m curious about how this is fantasy – the blurb doesn’t actually mention any magical elements, unless I missed them? Regardless, I’m both entranced by and terrified of diving, so as I’ll never do it myself, reading adventure stories about it sounds perfect!

The Summer Queen (The Buried and the Bound Trilogy, 2) by Rochelle Hassan
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Lebanese-American MC, bi/pansexual MC, gay MC
Published on: 23rd January 2024
Goodreads

This captivating sequel to The Buried and the Bound draws readers into the twisted and irresistible world of the Fair Folk—perfect for fans of The Cruel Prince and The Hazel Wood.

As a new coven, Aziza, Leo, and Tristan faced evil and triumphed. All that’s left is to put their lives back together, a process complicated by the fallout from painful secrets, the emotional and physical scars they now carry, and the mysteries that still haunt them.

But with the approach of the solstice comes the arrival of strange new visitors to Blackthorn: the Summer Court, a nomadic community of Fair Folk from deep in Elphame. They’ve journeyed to the border between the human world and fairyland, far from their usual caravan route, to take back something that belongs to them—something Leo’s not willing to lose.

Refusing to give up without a fight, he makes a risky deal with the Summer Court’s princess and regent. The challenge she proposes sends Coven Blackthorn into the farthest, wildest reaches of Elphame.

But when you play games with the Fair Folk, even winning has a cost.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-22T09:05:00+00:00", "description": "A Botswanan dystopia, wicked sapphics, and dangerous quests into Faerie!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-170\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The Summer Queen (The Buried and the Bound Trilogy, 2)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Rochelle Hassan", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I enjoyed the first book in this series, The Buried and the Bound, even more than I expected to (review here) and I am both excited for and kind of terrified of Summer Queen: anyone who’s read book one knows what the Summer Court must be after, and I have no idea how our cast are going to get out of this one!

Breeze Spells and Bridegrooms by Sarah Wallace, S.O. Callahan
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
Published on: 27th January 2024
Goodreads

Roger not only had to prove himself to the Council, he also had to prove himself to Wyndham Wrenwhistle.

Fae and humans alike are returning to London for the Season, but the excitement is marred by the growing poverty rate among humans with low magical scores.

Tenacious Roger Barnes proposes a new rubric for testing magic to the Council, hoping to resolve the predicament for his fellow humans. But when he is paired with Wyndham Wrenwhistle, a dashing fae who has disliked him since childhood, the project seems destined to fail. Even after reaching a tentative truce, their fragile partnership crumbles due to malicious lies.

Adding to the disarray, a popular gossip column unexpectedly announces that Roger and Wyn are engaged. Obliged to go along with the falsehood to save their families from scandal, they are forced to reconcile their differences for the sake of the rubric — and for their impending marriage. As the project bleeds into their wedding plans, the pressure to flawlessly execute both mounts even higher.

Together, they have the chance to solve a crisis decades in the making — but they'll need more than magic to succeed.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-22T09:05:00+00:00", "description": "A Botswanan dystopia, wicked sapphics, and dangerous quests into Faerie!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-170\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Breeze Spells and Bridegrooms", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sarah Wallace, S.O. Callahan", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I am already massively invested in this rubric, and I am SO here for queernorm historical settings!

Will you be reading any of these? Let me know!

The post Must-Have Monday #170 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

A High-Octane Religious Experience: Exordia by Seth Dickinson

Exordia by Seth Dickinson
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Kurdish MCs, bisexual Black-Hispanic MC, sapphic Black-Filipino MC, magor Chinese sapphic character, pre-F/F
PoV: Third-person, present-tense; multiple PoVs
Published on: 23rd January 2024
ISBN: 1250233003
Goodreads

Award-winning author Seth Dickinson explodes into a new genre with this new standalone novel, a science fiction debut.

“Anna, I came to Earth tracking a very old story, a story that goes back to the dawn of time. it’s very unlikely that you’ll die right now. It wouldn’t be narratively complete.”

Anna Sinjari—refugee, survivor of genocide, disaffected office worker—has a close encounter that reveals universe-threatening stakes. While humanity reels from disaster, she must join a small team of civilians, soldiers, and scientists to investigate a mysterious broadcast and unknowable horror. If they can manage to face their own demons, they just might save the world.

I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-21T18:54:19+00:00", "description": "Snake aliens and souls and my first six-star read of 2024!!!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/a-high-octane-religious-experience-exordia-by-seth-dickinson\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Exordia", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Seth Dickinson", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "1250233003" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": 5, "bestRating": "5" }} Highlights

~souls + science
~add narrative to the list of universal forces
~an evil space empire
~I ship the snake-alien and the war-orphan
~how hard would you fight for your world?

I CANNOT EVEN.

WHAT.

WHAT.

WHAT.

I really had no idea what to expect of Exordia – I adore Dickinson’s Masquerade series, so obviously I was interested to see what he’d do with sci fi.

But THIS!!! There’s not knowing what to expect – and then there’s getting hit with THIS, this LSD-cocaine combo with medusa-aliens and sapphic science geniuses and honest-to-gods paladins (that’s a pun, and you’ll get it when you read the book), all racing to save the world and the galaxy and the souls of an entire species. (Maybe the souls of more than one species.) Exordia is a high-octane religious experience, a blockbuster of an action-movie that is achingly profound, with alien weaponry that shreds souls and the secrets of the universe hidden in pink noise, a tenderly merciless dissection of humanity and morality that still manages to make you giggle-snort at the most inappropriate moments. Dickinson plays the threads of the reader’s nerve-endings like a modern bard on the strings of an electric harp, and the result is a rock-n-roll-meets-death-metal concert of a story, complete with pyrotechnics and enough heart to have you screaming your throat raw.

What will she say to the alien? She has not planned that far. “Take us so your leader”? No, the alien’s supposed to use that one. “We come in peace” has the same problem, and would, anyway, be a lie. Anna has no peace to offer. “Invade us, I beg you.” At least this would resolve the problem of her Argentina-sized debt.

You sure as hell won’t know who the fuck to cheer for, but you can’t help loving every character at least a little bit. (Except Iruvage, that fucker.) And they might all be queer??? Dickinson is definitely doing something with queerness that I’m not smart enough to articulate – check out the review I linked for a better breakdown on that. (And honestly, a better breakdown of the whole book, really!)

And yeah, parts of Exordia go heavy on the physics, but if I, who slept through my entire last year of physics classes when I was 16, can make it, so can you!

Oh, and this is another excellent review that says it all so much better than I can, please read it too! Whether you need more convincing or not.

Push comes to shove, I feel like the only thing I can say is – just dive in, head first. Make sure you have water bottles ready to keep yourself hydrated, because once you pick this up, you will be GLUED to the pages. Things like eating and sleeping will become so much less important than what happens next. This is the sort of book you inhale and it has left me with such a book-hangover, I don’t know how I can possibly read anything else again after this. What can compare???

My first six-star read of the year, easy. And it comes out this Tuesday!

BRACE FOR IMPACT, IT’S GOING TO BE MOST EXCELLENT!

Triggers??? [View post to see spoiler]

The post A High-Octane Religious Experience: Exordia by Seth Dickinson appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

City of What-Could-Have-Been: City of Stardust by Georgia Summers

The City of Stardust by Georgia Summers
Genres: Fantasy, Portal Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Bi/pansexual PoV character/love interest
PoV: Third-person, present-tense; multiple POVs
Published on: 30th January 2024
ISBN: 9781399714235
Goodreads

Slip into a lush world of magic, stardust, and monsters in this spellbinding contemporary fantasy from debut author Georgia Summers.

For centuries, the Everlys have seen their best and brightest disappear, taken as punishment for a crime no one remembers, for a purpose no one understands. Their tormentor, a woman named Penelope, never ages, never grows sick – and never forgives a debt.

Violet Everly was a child when her mother left on a stormy night, determined to break the curse. When Marianne never returns, Penelope issues an ultimatum: Violet has ten years to find her mother, or she will take her place. Violet is the last of the Everly line, the last to suffer. Unless she can break the curse first.

Her hunt leads her into a seductive magical underworld of power-hungry scholars, fickle gods and monsters bent on revenge. And into the path of Penelope's quiet assistant, Aleksander, who she knows cannot be trusted – and yet to whom she finds herself undeniably drawn.

With her time running out, Violet will travel the edges of the world to find Marianne and the key to the city of stardust, where the Everly story began.

I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-19T20:31:59+00:00", "description": "It's all vibes and pretty pastry with no filling.", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/city-of-what-could-have-been-city-of-stardust-by-georgia-summers\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The City of Stardust", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Georgia Summers", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "9781399714235" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": 2.5, "bestRating": "5" }} Highlights

~the keys are portals
~the portals are also portals
~deals with the Devil are safer than deals with angels
~(they’re not angels)
~best not get your fortune told

Stylistically, City of Stardust is strongly reminiscent of Erin Morgenstern – the prose and vibes made me think of Night Circus pretty much immediately, though I really want to emphasise that there are no other similarities between City of Stardust and either of Morgenstern’s novels. They are about completely different things! Do not come here looking for a magical circus or an underground world of books! But if you’re looking for something that has the vibes of Night Circus; if you enjoy Morgenstern’s writing style and would like to read something like that; then City of Stardust will probably tick your box.

It just…probably won’t tick many other boxes.

Credit where credit is due: City of Stardust is pleasantly twisty, not in a shock value way (well, not much) but more in an attempt to be true to life, where magical solutions don’t spring out of thin air, and quests sometimes fail, and being good doesn’t by default mean that the bad things will never happen to you. Which makes it sound very cynical…and I guess it is, kind of? But not bitter, or resigned, or pessimistic. More…merciless is the term that comes to mind. This isn’t a grimdark book, at all, but Summers does a good job of going against reader expectations – she knows that we’ve read enough fantasy books to know how stories like this ‘should’ go, but she’s not going to follow those well-trod paths. Be prepared to be surprised. Be prepared to be genuinely scared for the main character/s. Be prepared to see Summers weave her own pattern of story.

The problem with this is that it’s mostly very underwhelming. Yes, in real life we don’t always get answers to everything – but I kind of resent not getting them in my fiction. Yes, in real life people get scared and don’t do the heroic thing – but that’s not really what I’m here for. Yes, in real life we sometimes have to face the fact that the person we’re depending on is going to let us down – but seriously? I’m here for the escapism, ma’am! And most of this happens without a bang; quests or attempts or questions just fizzling out, rather than Summers turning the tables on us dramatically. So they don’t feel like twists or gasps or aha! moments; it’s more like wet tissue paper coming apart in your hands. Not badly written, but not impactful, either.

To be brutal, that kind of sums up the whole book: not very impactful. City of Stardust is pages and pages of style over substance, leaning into vibes and brief moments of beautiful description to carry a story that’s been shaved so thin it can no longer stand under its own weight. There’s the skeleton of a very decent story here (albeit not the one I wanted; more on that in a sec), but Summers skims over it, never giving us a chance to really sink our teeth in or become immersed, or invested, in the world she’s created. Take Violet’s so-called ‘hunt’: we barely see any of it, because Summers time-skips over most of it! We never see how Violet’s learned the skills she uses, or where she got her contacts, etc; they were gathered during the hand-wavey time-skip, and we just have to be satisfied with that.

A year quickly trickles away to a year. To six months, then three.

That doesn’t help with the problem that Violet feels very passive, despite the fact that she does, technically, do things. In the very last ‘act’ of the book she’s pretty great, but for most of the story she feels as though she’s drifting, Summers nudging her into place for each chapter because that’s where she needs Violet to be, not because Violet is any kind of driving force herself. The love of books and stories never really came through for me; it’s something we told, not shown, and I was never convinced by her supposed passion to see other worlds – we’re told it, over and over, but I never felt it. Violet is very much a character moved around by the plot, rather than a character who makes plot happen.

And honestly, she doesn’t make sense as a character. How does this young woman, who’s never gone to school or been further from home than the cafe where she works, know how to navigate airports and masques and secret societies? When did she get lessons on how to steal invites to exclusive parties? [View post to see spoiler] She’s somehow very capable and supposedly independent (even though, for most of the book, she depends on Aleksander and Caspian for pretty much everything) but her backstory doesn’t explain how she could have become this kind of person. She ought to be a shrinking – hah! – violet, overwhelmed by how big the world is, with little to no understanding of normal human interaction or social skills. But she’s not, and it’s both bad writing and lazy, because it would have been so easy to have the uncles who raise her to do so much more to prepare her. One of them’s some sort of international criminal; he could have taught her everything she needed! But no. She’s just magically a (washed-out shell of a) Strong, Confident-Competent Heroine, Because Reasons.

Aleksander, our sometimes-POV character and love interest, isn’t exactly more interesting, but is in a more interesting situation, with all kinds of constraints and pressures – and punishments – that make sense of his choices and actions. If he comes across as passive sometimes, it at least makes sense.

But forget the characters, let’s look at the fantastical elements: a city in another world, magic keys, fortune-telling cards. All glimpsed, sometimes dangled tauntingly in front of our faces, but never really explored. Fidelis, the magical city in another world that everything kind of revolves around, is run by the mystical Scholars – but what the fuck do the Scholars actually do? I have no idea. Aleksander wants nothing more than to become one of them, has spent his whole life training to do so, and by the end of the book I still had no clue what that meant. And once we started learning about the astrals – who are maybe living stars, maybe angels, maybe gods – I wanted a book about them. I wanted their story! My gods, you seriously wrote a book about this wishy-washy woman on a hand-wavey, time-skippy attempt to track down her mother, when you had living stars in your back pocket?! I want the backstories of the astrals we meet in City of Stardust; I want to see the realm they come from; I want to see their adventures and lives and loves and wars. And we got none of that. They’re the most beautiful, mysterious, powerful beings in the book, the best parts of the book, and they’re just a tease. I have no idea how or why Summers was more interested in writing Violet’s story than theirs!

At least in Neil Gaiman’s Stardust, though we don’t learn much about how the stars live when they’re not fallen to earth in human form, we do get, you know, the whole realm of Faerie. Summers gives us neither: nothing about the stars, and only the tiniest, faintest taste of Fidelis.

The prose is pretty, but the story is thin, worn thinner by the way it skims over so much time, the way it barely touches on its own magic. It’s the wrong story; if this book had only focused on different elements, changed its perspective, then it could have been seriously amazing. The efforts to be different and do the unexpected fall flat, left me disappointed and unsatisfied with the attempts. As-is, City of Stardust doesn’t live up to its promises. I’d be willing to read more from Summers – she knows how to put words together beautifully, and I loved the magic and strangeness that her imagination dreamed up. If she lets us dive in and embrace the magic next time, I’m pretty sure it’ll knock our socks off.

But right now? City of Stardust does not sparkle, and if you want more than vibes, I recommend looking elsewhere.

The post City of What-Could-Have-Been: City of Stardust by Georgia Summers appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

I Can’t Wait For…The Color of Revenge by Cornelia Funke

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted over at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about but haven’t yet read. Most of the time they’re books that have yet to be released, but not always. It’s based on the Waiting on Wednesday meme, which was originally hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. 

This week my Can’t-Wait-For Book is The Color of Revenge by Cornelia Funke!

The Colour of Revenge (Inkworld, #4) by Cornelia Funke
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: 15th October 2024
Goodreads

Vengeance awaits in the follow up to the epic, award-winning, New York Times bestselling Inkheart trilogy by internationally acclaimed author Cornelia Funke.

Five years have passed since the events of Inkdeath. At last, peace reigns in Ombra where Meggie, Mo, Dustfinger and all the other residents lead a happy, carefree life. But it has been a different story for Orpheus, who after fleeing to the north, has spent his days living a meager and deprived existence fueled only by his thirst for revenge against Dustfinger and all those who betrayed him.

Now Orpheus is willing to use any means necessary to take revenge. Even the darkest spell the ink world has to offer.

When Dustfinger’s deepest fears come true, he’ll have to figure out whether the words still obey him. Or is he the one who should be afraid of the pictures this time…

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-17T16:00:50+00:00", "description": "After many years, the Inkheart series is getting a new instalment!!!", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/i-cant-wait-for-the-color-of-revenge-by-cornelia-funke\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The Colour of Revenge (Inkworld, #4)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Cornelia Funke", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

It is practically criminal that we won’t see The Color of Revenge with a cover in the style of the original English-language editions–

Are they not the most beautiful covers?!

–BUT STILL: Inkworld book four!!! IF YOU’RE NOT SHRIEKING YOU’RE WRONG!!!

If you don’t know this series you have my utmost sympathies and should read it at once it’s about Maggie, whose father is able to bring things and even people out of books if he reads aloud from them. Though Maggie doesn’t know it, she and her dad are in hiding from characters he accidentally read out of a very rare book years ago…and the story spirals out from there. Inkheart works as a standalone, but the second two books are amazing and I don’t know why anyone would want to skip them!

Hard-core fans have been aware for a while that Funke has been working on a fourth book – which surprised everyone, because the trilogy wrapped up beautifully! – and it was finally published in Funke’s native German at the end of last year. And the translation into English is already up for preorder, with release set for this October! That’s so much sooner than I dared hope for!!!

It gives me plenty of time to reread the earlier books, though – and if you’ve never read them, now’s a good time to start so you’re ready for October!

The post I Can’t Wait For…The Color of Revenge by Cornelia Funke appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Must-Have Monday #169

Must-Have Monday is a feature highlighting which of the coming week’s new releases I’m excited for. It is not meant to be a comprehensive list of all books being published that week; only those I’m interested in out of those I’m aware of! The focus is diverse SFF, but other genres sneak in occasionally too.

TWELVE books this week! I think the publishing year is properly getting started now!

(Books are listed in order of pub date, then Adult SFF, Adult Other, YA SFF, YA Other, MG SFF.)

All the Hidden Paths (The Tithenai Chronicles, #2) by Foz Meadows
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Brown mlm MCs, M/M, major mute character, brown queernorm culture, multiple minor nonbinary characters
Published on: 15th January 2024
Goodreads

The follow-up to Foz Meadows's A Strange and Stubborn Endurance , a sultry political & romantic fantasy exploring gender, sexuality, identity, and self-worth.

With the plot against them foiled and the city of Qi-Katai in safe hands, Velasin and Caethari have begun to test the waters of their relationship. But the wider political ramifications of their marriage are still playing out across two nations, and all too soon, they’re summoned north to Tithena’s capital city, Qi-Xihan, to present themselves to its monarch.

With Caethari newly invested as his grandmother’s heir and Velasin’s old ghosts gnawing at his heels, what little peace they’ve managed to find is swiftly put to the test. Cae’s recent losses have left him racked with grief and guilt, while Vel struggles with the disconnect between instincts that have kept him safe in secrecy and what an open life requires of him now.

Pursued by unknown assailants and with Qi-Xihan’s court factions jockeying for power, Vel and Cae must use all the skills at their disposal to not only survive, but thrive – because there’s more than one way to end an alliance, and more than one person who wants to see them fail.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-15T11:15:00+00:00", "description": "A Desi Medusa, epic queer science fantasy, shapeshifters, and faeries! ", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-169\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "All the Hidden Paths (The Tithenai Chronicles, #2)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Foz Meadows", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

This was published in the US at the end of last year, but today is the UK release! I absolutely adored it – it even made my Best SFF of 2023 list! – and I can’t recommend it strongly enough. I think it’s even better than book one!

Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands (Emily Wilde, #2) by Heather Fawcett
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Published on: 16th January 2024
Goodreads

When mysterious faeries from other realms appear at her university, curmudgeonly professor Emily Wilde must uncover their secrets before it’s too late in this heartwarming, enchanting second installment of the Emily Wilde series. 

Emily Wilde is a genius scholar of faerie folklore—she just wrote the world’s first comprehensive of encylopaedia of faeries. She’s learned many of the secrets of the Hidden Folk on her adventures . . . and also from her fellow scholar and former rival, Wendell Bambleby. 

Because Bambleby is more than infuriatingly charming. He’s an exiled faerie king on the run from his murderous mother, and in search of a door back to his realm. So despite Emily’s feelings for Bambleby, she’s not ready to accept his proposal of marriage. Loving one of the Fair Folk comes with secrets and danger. 

And she also has a new project to focus a map of the realms of faerie. While she is preparing her research, Bambleby lands her in trouble yet again, when assassins sent by Bambleby’s mother invade Cambridge. Now Bambleby and Emily are on another adventure, this time to the picturesque Austrian Alps, where Emily believes they may find the door to Bambley’s realm, and the key to freeing him from his family’s dark plans. 

But with new relationships for the prickly Emily to navigate and dangerous Folk lurking in every forest and hollow, Emily must unravel the mysterious workings of faerie doors, and of her own heart.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-15T11:15:00+00:00", "description": "A Desi Medusa, epic queer science fantasy, shapeshifters, and faeries! ", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-169\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands (Emily Wilde, #2)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Heather Fawcett", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

If you enjoyed the first book in this series, Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries (you can read my review here) then you’re DEFINITELY going to have fun with this sequel! If anything, I think I enjoyed Maps of the Otherlands even more than Encyclopaedia, because we don’t have the horribly icy setting of book one! (I’m really not a fan of icy settings…)

And if you HAVEN’T gotten in on this series yet, now’s a great time to start! Seriously, the hype for these books is entirely justified.

My review!

Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino
Genres: Sci Fi
Published on: 16th January 2024
Goodreads

At the moment when Voyager 1 is launched into space carrying its famous golden record, a baby of unusual perception is born to a single mother in Philadelphia. Adina Giorno is tiny and jaundiced, but reaches for warmth and light. As a child, she recognizes that she is different; she also possesses knowledge of a faraway planet. The arrival of a fax machine enables her to contact her extraterrestrial relatives, beings who have sent her to report on the oddities of earthlings.

For years, as she moves through the world and makes a life for herself among humans, she dispatches transmissions on the terrors and surprising joys of their existence. But at a precarious moment, a beloved friend urges Adina to share her messages with the world. Is there a chance she is not alone?

A blazing novel of startling originality about the fragility and resilience of life in our universe, Marie-Helene Bertino’s Beautyland is a remarkable evocation of feeling in exile at home and introduces a gentle, unforgettable alien for our times.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-15T11:15:00+00:00", "description": "A Desi Medusa, epic queer science fantasy, shapeshifters, and faeries! ", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-169\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Beautyland", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Marie-Helene Bertino", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

Probably more literary than outright sci fi, but I’m still in love with this premise. Using a fax machine to talk to your home planet! And the idea of a kind of…swap? An alien baby for the Voyager 11 golden record? Really excited for this one!

Triangulum by Subodhana Wijeyeratne
Genres: Sci Fi
Representation: (Probably?) Desi cast
Published on: 16th January 2024
Goodreads

The fate of humanity hangs in the balance while the Gods play.

The distant future. Humanity is ruled by the godlike Dawn and her Triangulan allies. Her Golden Swarm keeps the garden world of Prithvi safe. Her nephew’s Red Fleet secures the rest of the Nine Worlds. In the depths of the system, her regents—the Charioteer of Daitya, and the Huntress of Himenduh—bolster her authority with their own fleets, their own armies, and their own power. So it has been for three thousand years.

But, of course, nothing lasts forever.

On Daitya, a refugee family arrives from Prithvi. A mother sells her daughter into slavery. A princess seeks forbidden knowledge. Their lives could not be more different, but their stories are intertwined. They will meet in the belly of the juggernaut Skо̄lex—a vast, living starship (vimana). They will witness the fall of kingdoms and the destruction of fleets and the toppling of the old order. They will participate first-hand in the confrontation, millennia in the making, between the Dawn and her long-estranged sister, the Night, who has traveled a million light years to right an ancient wrong.

They will discover that not all is as it seems. The Triangulans are not gods. The Dawn is not just. And above all, the future—their future, humanity’s future, the future of the Nine Worlds of Surya—is nothing like what they thought it would be.

Welcome to the battlefield of gods and humans. Welcome to the Nine Worlds of Surya.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-15T11:15:00+00:00", "description": "A Desi Medusa, epic queer science fantasy, shapeshifters, and faeries! ", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-169\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Triangulum", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Subodhana Wijeyeratne", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

Well, this cover is plenty scary, but the blurb sounds pretty cool? Apparently this is bio-punk, which I’m guessing explains the ship-monster on the cover – tech fused or mixed into biology? I haven’t seen that very often!

I found this on the book’s Big River page, which makes for a much clearer description;

“Triangulum describes humanity’s revolt against a cadre of alien immortals, bio-mechanical beings with a technology indistinguishable from magic.  It is a story of the far future but also the distant past—needing to be worshiped as gods, the aliens have adopted humanity’s oldest cosmologies—the Sanskrit-language Vedas—so that they can appear to us as devas, asuras, maruts.  The seamless amalgams of past/future, animal/machine, and magic/technology give Subodhana Wijeyeratne’s novel a hallucinogenic vividness and clarity, and a sense of one thing constantly becoming something else, the transformations of the characters against a background as immutable as stars.”

Paul Park, author of Soldiers of Paradise and Sugar Rain

That? That is a book I absolutely HAVE to read. Gimme!

The Storm Gathers (Stormfall) by Maelan Holladay
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: 16th January 2024
Goodreads

One day, my dear daughter, you will destroy the world.

After being forced from her home five years ago, Alana Zaya has finally been given the opportunity to return and claim her rightful place on the Okaron throne. When her voyage is waylaid by pirates, she soon finds herself stranded at sea, surrounded by strangers harboring dark secrets. But hers are perhaps the darkest of all.

Across the world, Rae Toma is a warrior who can't walk away from a fight. After years of using her skills to rebel against the regime that trained her, her treachery is revealed, forcing her to flee into the Shatter—a maze of islands that no one has ever returned from.

There, she finds Nur Del Sue, a Stormwitch on a mission to prove herself in a world determined to ignore her.

Forced from their homes, can these characters survive long enough to uncover the deadly mysteries at the heart of their world?

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-15T11:15:00+00:00", "description": "A Desi Medusa, epic queer science fantasy, shapeshifters, and faeries! ", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-169\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The Storm Gathers (Stormfall)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Maelan Holladay", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

From a scary cover to a beautiful one – check out that dragon! From the early reviews it sounds like this is packed with very badass ladies, which is promising! And the blurb seems to be promising either strong femme-friendship vibes or possible sapphic-ness – and either would be great!

The Parliament by Aimee Pokwatka
Genres: Fantasy, Horror
Published on: 16th January 2024
Goodreads

The Birds meets The Princess Bride in this tale of friendship, responsibility, and the primal force of nature.

“Murder owls are extreme,” Jude said. “What’s more extreme than murder owls?”

Madeleine Purdy is stuck in her home town library.

When tens of thousands of owls descend on the building, rending and tearing at anyone foolish enough to step outside, Mad is tasked with keeping her students safe, and distracted, while they seek a solution to their dilemma.

Perhaps they’ll find the inspiration they seek in her favorite childhood book, The Silent Queen ….

With food and fresh water in low supply, the denizens of the library will have to find a way out, and soon, but the owls don’t seem to be in a hurry to leave…

The Parliament is a story of grief and missed opportunities, but also of courage and hope.

And of extremely sharp beaks.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-15T11:15:00+00:00", "description": "A Desi Medusa, epic queer science fantasy, shapeshifters, and faeries! ", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-169\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The Parliament", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Aimee Pokwatka", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I am choosing to believe that Parliament has much more to it than is described in the blurb, because I’m not getting Princess Bride vibes from it, nor do I see anything to be super excited about. But there’s been a fair bit of hype, so I’m willing to accept that I might be missing something. I at least want to take a peek at it!

So Let Them Burn (The Divine Traitors #1) by Kamilah Cole
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Jamaican-coded setting & cast, asexual MC, sapphic MC
Published on: 16th January 2024
Goodreads

Whip-smart and immersive, this Jamaican-inspired fantasy follows a gods-blessed heroine who’s forced to choose between saving her sister or protecting her homeland.   

Faron Vincent can channel the power of the gods. Five years ago, she used her divine magic to liberate her island from its enemies, the dragon-riding Langley Empire. But now, at seventeen, Faron is all powered up with no wars to fight. She’s a legend to her people and a nuisance to her neighbors.  

When she’s forced to attend an international peace summit, Faron expects that she will perform tricks like a trained pet and then go home. She doesn’t expect her older sister, Elara, forming an unprecedented bond with an enemy dragon—or the gods claiming the only way to break that bond is to kill her sister.  

As Faron’s desperation to find another solution takes her down a dark path, and Elara discovers the shocking secrets at the heart of the Langley Empire, both must make difficult choices that will shape each other’s lives, as well as the fate of their world.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-15T11:15:00+00:00", "description": "A Desi Medusa, epic queer science fantasy, shapeshifters, and faeries! ", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-169\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "So Let Them Burn (The Divine Traitors #1)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Kamilah Cole", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I didn’t get along with this one, but I appear to be very much in the minority, so if you are not as stupidly nitpicky as myself, there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy it.

A Drop of Venom by Sajni Patel
Genres: Fantasy
Representation: Desi cast and setting
Published on: 16th January 2024
Goodreads

Circe goes YA in this unapologetically feminist retelling of the Medusa myth steeped in Indian mythology, a YA epic fantasy addition to the Rick Riordan Presents imprint.

All monsters and heroes have beginnings. This is mine.

Sixteen-year-old Manisha is no stranger to monsters—she’s been running from them for years, from beasts who roam the jungle to the King’s army, who forced her people, the naga, to scatter to the ends of the earth. You might think that the kingdom’s famed holy temples atop the floating mountains, where Manisha is now a priestess, would be safe—but you would be wrong.

Seventeen-year-old Pratyush is a famed slayer of monsters, one of the King’s most prized warriors and a frequent visitor to the floating temples. For every monster the slayer kills, years are added to his life. You might think such a powerful warrior could do whatever he wants, but true power lies with the King. Tired after years of fighting, Pratyush wants nothing more than a peaceful, respectable life.

When Pratyush and Manisha meet, each sees in the other the possibility to chart a new path. Unfortunately, the kingdom’s powerful have other plans. A temple visitor sexually assaults Manisha and pushes her off the mountain into a pit of vipers. A month later, the King sends Pratyush off to kill one last monster (a powerful nagin who has been turning men to stone) before he’ll consider granting his freedom.

Except Manisha doesn’t die, despite the hundreds of snake bites covering her body and the venom running through her veins. She rises from the pit more powerful than ever before, with heightened senses, armor-like skin, and blood that can turn people to stone. And Pratyush doesn’t know it, but the “monster” he’s been sent to kill is none other than the girl he wants to marry.

Alternating between Manisha’s and Pratyush’s perspectives, Sajni Patel weaves together lush language, high stakes, and page-turning suspense, demanding an answer to the question “What does it truly mean to be a monster?”

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-15T11:15:00+00:00", "description": "A Desi Medusa, epic queer science fantasy, shapeshifters, and faeries! ", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-169\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "A Drop of Venom", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sajni Patel", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

A Desi Medusa is such a great idea! I wish we could cut out the rape part of the story, but as long as Patel handles it well…rape/SA survivors deserve rep too. And nagin!Manisha sounds EPIC! I so love powerful monster girls!

Beasts of War by Ayana Gray
Genres: Fantasy
Representation: African-coded cast and setting
Published on: 16th January 2024
Goodreads

In this epic conclusion to her New York Times bestselling series, Ayana Gray delivers a heart-pounding fantasy adventure filled with mythos, monsters, and mortal heroes who are astoundingly human.

Once a prisoner to Fedu, the vengeful god of death, Koffi has regained her freedom, but she is far from safe. Fedu will stop at nothing to hunt her down and use her power to decimate the mortal world. Koffi knows when Fedu will during the next Bonding, a once-in-a-lifetime celestial event. To survive, Koffi will have to find powerful new allies quickly, and convince them to help her in the terrible battle to come.   

Once a warrior-turned-runaway, Ekon has carved out a new life for himself outside Lkossa, but the shadows of his past still haunt him. Now, alongside unexpected friends, Ekon tries to focus on getting Koffi to the Kusonga Plains before the next Bonding. If he fails, Koffi will be consumed, either by her own dangerous power, or the terrible fate Ekon is doing everything he can to prevent. Ekon devotes himself to protecting Koffi, but the lingering threats from his own past are more urgent than he knows.

As Koffi and Ekon race to the Kusonga Plains—and try to garner the help of Eshōza’s ancient gods along the way—they must face a slew of dangerous beasts old and new. In the end, destiny may unite Koffi and Ekon for the last time—or tear them apart for good.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-15T11:15:00+00:00", "description": "A Desi Medusa, epic queer science fantasy, shapeshifters, and faeries! ", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-169\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Beasts of War", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Ayana Gray", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

It’s the conclusion to the Beasts of Prey trilogy!!! You no longer have ANY excuse not to pounce on this series; if you’ve been waiting till all the books are out (and for the record, it’s really bad for the authors when you do that, unless you’re buying each book as it’s released and just waiting fill the series is done to read them) now is the time!!!

Escaping Mr. Rochester by L.L. McKinney
Representation: Black sapphic MCs, F/F
Published on: 16th January 2024
Goodreads

In this fresh reimagining of Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel, Jane Eyre and Bertha Mason must save each other from the horrifying machinations of Mr. Rochester.

Jane has no interest in a husband. Eager to make her own way in the world, she accepts the governess position at Thornfield Hall. Though her new employer, Edward Rochester, has a charming air—not to mention a handsome face—Jane discovers that his smile can sharpen in an instant. Plagued by Edward’s mercurial mood and the strange wails that echo through the corridors, she grows suspicious of the secrets hidden within Thornfield Hall—unaware of the true horrors lurking above her very head.

On the topmost floor, Bertha is trapped in more ways than one. After her whirlwind marriage to Edward turned into a nightmare, he locked her away as revenge for withholding her inheritance. Now his patience grows thin in the face of Bertha’s resilience and Jane’s persistent questions, and both young women are in more danger than they realize. When their only chance at safety—and perhaps something more—is in each other’s arms, can they find and keep one another safe before Edward’s dark machinations close in around them?

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-15T11:15:00+00:00", "description": "A Desi Medusa, epic queer science fantasy, shapeshifters, and faeries! ", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-169\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Escaping Mr. Rochester", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "L.L. McKinney", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I unabashedly LOATHED Jane Eyre – and Rochester in particular, how does anyone find him an attractive hero??? – when we had to read it for school, and this is EXACTLY what I would have wanted instead! McKinney isn’t the first author to interpret Bertha as a woman of colour, but I don’t recall seeing a retelling with a BIPOC Jane before, and I suspect they’ll both be much happier with each other than they ever could have been with that asshole Rochester!

The Principle of Moments (Order of Legends, #1) by Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Science Fantasy
Representation: Black MC, Black gay MC
Published on: 18th January 2024
Goodreads

Unmissable for fans of the spacefaring found family of Becky Chambers, the alternate London of V. E. Schwab, and the virtuosic climate-craft of N. K. Jemisin.

A century-spanning space fantasy novel that will take you on a whirlwind adventure, from a Regency Era love affair between a time-traveller and the prince waiting for him in the past, to a rescue mission in the 60th century, where a girl desperately races against time as she searches for the sister the emperor stole.

6066: In Emperor Thracin’s brave new galaxy, humans are not citizens. Instead, they are indentured labourers, working to repay the debt they unwittingly incurred when they settled on Gahraan - a desert planet already owned by the emperor himself. Asha Akindele knows she’s just another voiceless cog working the assembly lines that fuel his vast imperial war machine. Her only rebellion: studying stolen aeronautics manuals in the dead of night. But then a cloaked stranger arrives to deliver an impossible message, and her life changes in an instant.

1812: Obi Amadi is done with time-travelling. Never mind the fact he doesn’t know how to cure himself of the temporal sickness he caught whilst anchoring his soul to Regency London, the one that unmakes him further with every jump. Or if the prince he loves will ever love him back. Or why his father disappeared. He is done. Until he hears about the ghost of a girl in the British Museum. A girl from another time.

When Obi’s path tangles with Asha’s and a prophecy awakens in the cold darkness of space, they must voyage through the stars, racing against time, tyranny, and the legacy of three heroes from an ancient religion who may be awakening, reincarnated in ways beyond comprehension.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-15T11:15:00+00:00", "description": "A Desi Medusa, epic queer science fantasy, shapeshifters, and faeries! ", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-169\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "The Principle of Moments (Order of Legends, #1)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

What can I even say??? I’VE BEEN WAITING TO READ THIS BOOK SINCE 2020 AND MY EXCITEMENT HAS ONLY GROWN THE CLOSER RELEASE DAY HAS COME!!! Which means at this point I’m vibrating with EEEEEEEE Feels so hard I can barely type. IT’S ALMOST HERE, FOLX, WE ARE SO SO CLOSE!!!

Many Drops Make a Stream by Adrian Harley
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: F/F, brown sapphic love interest
Published on: 20th December 2024
Goodreads

A memory-stealing cult.
The ever-watchful City of Eyes.
Making small talk.
Join Droplet as she faces all these horrors and more…

Vigilante shapeshifter Droplet has trained her entire life to take down those with more power than scruples, but she still makes mistakes. When a rescue mission goes wrong, a memory-stealing cult of blood mages escapes with kidnapped captives in tow. To save them, Droplet reluctantly teams up with the outgoing, tenacious Azera. Droplet knows better than to trust a human—she made that mistake once, and that person's betrayal scattered her community across the known world—and she can tell Azera is hiding secrets behind her sunny smile. But if they can’t learn to work together, even Droplet’s own memories could be lost.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-15T11:15:00+00:00", "description": "A Desi Medusa, epic queer science fantasy, shapeshifters, and faeries! ", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/must-have-monday-169\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Many Drops Make a Stream", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Adrian Harley", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": false, "bestRating": "5" }}

I heard about Many Drops Make a Stream at the last second, through lunch, but I’m glad I did! I love stories about shapeshifters – ones who can take many forms, preferably, not just human+1 animal – and this one sounds really fun! Especially with the second bit of the blurb, which can be found on the publisher’s site;

Many Drops Make a Stream, Adrian Harley’s debut novel, is the stand-alone first book in a series of related fantasy-mystery-heists featuring the shapeshifter Droplet and the friends and found family who work alongside her to fight the corrupt powers-that-be. Many Drops Make a Stream is rated general (adult) audiences and features shapeshifting shenanigans, a nascent f/f quarrelers-to-lovers pre-relationship, a wonderful extended cast of family and pseudo-family, necromancy and blood magic and spellwork (oh my!), and one (1) very angry goose.

I AM SO VERY HERE FOR THIS!

Will you be reading any of these? Let me know!

The post Must-Have Monday #169 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Rich With Delight: Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett

Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands (Emily Wilde, #2) by Heather Fawcett
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Representation: Very minor M/M and F/F
PoV: 1st-person, past-tense
Published on: 16th January 2024
ISBN: 0593500202
Goodreads

When mysterious faeries from other realms appear at her university, curmudgeonly professor Emily Wilde must uncover their secrets before it’s too late, in this heartwarming, enchanting second installment of the Emily Wilde series.

Emily Wilde is a genius scholar of faerie folklore who just wrote the world’s first comprehensive encyclopaedia of faeries. She’s learned many of the secrets of the Hidden Ones on her adventures . . . and also from her fellow scholar and former rival Wendell Bambleby.

Because Bambleby is more than infuriatingly charming. He’s an exiled faerie king on the run from his murderous mother and in search of a door back to his realm. And despite Emily’s feelings for Bambleby, she’s not ready to accept his proposal of marriage: Loving one of the Fair Folk comes with secrets and dangers.

She also has a new project to focus on: a map of the realms of faerie. While she is preparing her research, Bambleby lands her in trouble yet again, when assassins sent by his mother invade Cambridge. Now Bambleby and Emily are on another adventure, this time to the picturesque Austrian Alps, where Emily believes they may find the door to Bambleby’s realm and the key to freeing him from his family’s dark plans.

But with new relationships for the prickly Emily to navigate and dangerous Folk lurking in every forest and hollow, Emily must unravel the mysterious workings of faerie doors and of her own heart.

I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

{ "@context":"https://schema.org", "@type":"Review", "datePublished": "2024-01-11T16:37:47+00:00", "description": "In this second instalment of the Emily Wilde series, Emily and Wendell are off to the Alps! And perhaps some more otherworldly places...", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "Every Book a Doorway" }, "url": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/rich-with-delight-emily-wildes-map-of-the-otherlands-by-heather-fawcett\/", "itemReviewed": { "@type": "Book", "name": "Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands (Emily Wilde, #2)", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Heather Fawcett", "sameAs": "" }, "isbn": "0593500202" }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Sia", "sameAs": "https:\/\/everybookadoorway.com\/" }, "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "ratingValue": 4.5, "bestRating": "5" }} Highlights

~beware the foxes!
~(don’t???) follow the ribbons
~a lily pond in a teacup
~a singular foot
~to wed, or not to wed??? That is the question

I massively enjoyed the first book in this series, Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries, and I am here to tell you that Map of the Otherlands is a very worthy sequel!

I don’t have anything smart to say about it; if you enjoyed the first book, you’re going to enjoy this one. Emily is still her wonderfully curmudgeonly self – she might be in love with a prince of Faerie, but she hasn’t let that change her; she still doesn’t care about her appearance, and she’s still more likely to snap and snarl than simper. And she’s still more than capable of, if not dealing with attacks from dangerous Folk, then certainly assisting in dealing with them, in gamechanging ways.

And we have new characters to add to the cast! This time around, Emily and Wendell are accompanied not just by Shadow (of course), but Emily’s niece, Ariadne (and really, if her father didn’t want her studying dryadology, why did he give her a name straight out of mythology???) and also the head of the dryadology department at their university, Rose. Ariadne is the sweetest of sweethearts, earnest and passionate and quite a good foil to Emily herself, while Rose seems like a teeth-gratingly Old White Man until, surprisingly, he isn’t. (By which I mean – he’s still old and white and a cis man. But he can learn!!! Give him a chance, even if he annoys you at first.) They both bring a lot to this second instalment; sometimes enlarging the cast can dilute the story, but that’s definitely not the case here. Ariadne is a delight, and among other things, Rose serves as a really good reminder to Emily and the reader that what she’s up to with Wendell is…incredibly not-normal.

You know, because the Folk are dangerous. And things usually don’t end well for the humans who fall in love with them.

In that way I think Rose is actually quite important to the book, because it’s so easy for us to…not forget that; the Folk give us plenty of reminders that they are not nice, safe, tame beings. But it’s natural to get swept up in the story, to assume a happy ending is guaranteed, to take Wendell as the exception to the rule of Don’t Mess With The Folk. These books are cosy! And fun! And Wendell is hilarious, fussing about tidying things and bemoaning the world that demands he rise from bed before noon; he’s not scary in the least, he’s endearing. So we do need Rose, to give us that bit of a wake-up call; to keep us from missing or dismissing all the bits of evidence that Wendell – and certainly the kingdom he wants to reclaim – are Dangerous As Hell, Actually.

We kind of have to stop and wonder, especially as that evidence builds up – is Emily doing the right thing, here? It’s definitely not the smart thing, but since when is love smart???

Speaking of the romance, I think Fawcett’s done something very clever with it here; for readers like myself who don’t really care for or about romance, it’s entirely possible to forget that there is a romance here, to sort of glaze over mentally and skim over the occasional mention of kisses and feelings. Whereas readers who do like romance can have their fill, since when you get right down to it Map of the Otherlands is driven by Emily’s love for Wendell and her desire to help him reclaim his kingdom. Oh, she’s definitely in it for the scholarly acclaim she’d earn by doing so, too…but that’s so obviously a secondary consideration for her, even if it takes her a little while to admit it to herself.

I think Encyclopaedia of Faeries was more straightforward than Map of the Otherlands; the latter revolves a bit more around the nature of the Faerie realms, as opposed to the Folk themselves, and honestly, of the two, the Folk are much easier to understand. Not that Fawcett bogs us down in dull minutiae or anything – the story here is never slow, or boring! – but it’s much harder to really get a grip on the way the various Fae realms co-exist, share borders, overlap, and/or have extremely casual relationships with time. I’m pretty sure Emily’s book of maps is doomed to failure, let’s put it that way.

There’s a magic cloak, and a magic scarf, and Emily is once again a one-woman armoury (even if she’s not forging a sword out of tears for Wendell this time, I was tickled pink when we discover how she’s carrying around weapons for him), and Map of the Otherlands is every bit as fun and perfect-to-snuggle-with as Encyclopaedia of Faeries ever was. Is it a bit more complex; does it go to some darker places? I think so. But it’s not deeply complex, and it’s not very dark, when all’s said and done. Just the right amount of both to make the story rich and interesting, as well as warm, funny, and delightful.

As I said; if you loved the first book, you’ll love this one!

The post Rich With Delight: Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.