fantasy
I thrive on Beauty and the Beast retellings, but my, is Beauty Reborn a just-okay trip through the same story beats. The Beauty here annoys, the Beast is mediocre, and the story doesn’t do that much to differentiate itself from every other take I’ve seen on the material.
Beauty wants anything ...
The long wait is over, and Bixby has met his match. India Holton’s Dangerous Damsels series rolls on with The Secret Service of Tea and Treason, which features an unusual sort of secret agent duel which may just result in love. It’s funny, it continues the series' strong world building, and it h ...
The Love Scribe is an intriguing fantasy that manages to poke at the readers’ sense of romantic importunity. But Meyerson’s navel-gazing style won’t be for everyone.
Alice has been blessed with a sudden and unexpected gift that she discovers by mistake. Her best-friend Gabby is suffering fr ...
Susan Dennard brings young readers a smashing good time with The Luminaries, the first in her new fantasy series about things that go bump in the woods and a heroine determined to change her station in life. The book sports characters worth caring for and excellent worldbuilding, but the story is pr ...
The Golden Enclaves is the third in a duology (yes, you read that right) about a deadly, dangerous version of Hogwarts which exists in a universe where magic is more curse than blessing.
Novik dumps readers straight into the action from where the last book left off and the story will not be coher ...
Chloe Gong never fails to take her readers on a journey. Foul Lady Fortune opens a fresh series for her, but also serves as a continuation of the adventures of the Shakesperian characters in her These Violent Delights duology. This novel provides Rosalind’s story. I liked it only slightly less tha ...
It’s been a long time since I’ve read a book so adept at inspiring, sustaining, and rewarding my curiosity as a reader as The Impossible Us.
It’s the story of Nicholas – Nick - a Leeds-based (ghost)writer and Rebecca – Bee - a London-based small business owner (of For Frock’s Sake, a ...
Is there anything more heartbreaking than discovering a book you hoped to love isn’t all that? Stephanie Garber is capable of writing a genuinely satisfying fantasy with sweet romance and a sense of magic. Once Upon a Broken Heart (OUABH for short, which I realize sounds like a shady agency from S ...
The Orphan Witch is a lovely but spare novel filled with rich worldbuilding. The central heroine is worth caring about, and the book has a sweeping sense of romance to it, even if the central love story is very instalove-y.
Author Persephone May is a lonely timewalker. Possessed of magical and ...
I loved Graceling and its sequels, Fire, Bitterblue, and Winterkeep, and I also love graphic novels, so I was so excited to see that Graceling had scored a graphic adaptation. Well, at least I was excited until I read it. A graphic novel should be more than a literal illustration of a text. Not only ...