Rogerson (Herc) opens this solid if familiar retelling of the Greek myth with Aphrodite narrating the unusual circumstances of her own birth: when Cronos, son of the god Ouranos, cut off his father’s testicles and threw them into the sea, “those balls were me.” Newly sentient Aphrodite is responsible for weaving threads of Fate that tell her the stories of every being in existence. It’s overwhelming, and soon the gods are tangling themselves in her threads as well, giving her visions of their fates. When she sees her closest friend and first love, Prometheus, in great danger, she hatches an ambitious plan to save him from his destiny: she will walk into Olympus and announce herself as the brand new Goddess of Love. With the power of a goddess, maybe she can save Prometheus and finally take control of her own destiny. Unfortunately for her, being a goddess is a little more complicated than she anticipated, and before she knows it, she’s started a war that may destroy them all. Rogerson gives Aphrodite an energetic voice and manages not to lose sight of her humanity in the sprawling story of her life. There’s little to make this stand out in a crowded field, but die-hard fans of mythological retellings will find plenty to enjoy. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 09/19/2025 | Details & Permalink

The conflict between sisters Hakara and Rasha mirrors the war raging between the gods, in Stewart’s emotionally charged second Hollow Covenant epic (after The Gods Below). While the sisters tussle over the god Kluehnn’s plans to alter the remaining untouched human kingdoms and eliminate the rest of the gods, cousins Sheuan and Mullayne investigate both the shady political ascension of the imperious Sovereign of Langzu and the mysterious fate of legendary explorer Tolemne. Sheuan, now wife of the Sovereign, uses her position to dig into his doings and to help Mullayne infiltrate a prison that may contain Tolemne’s tomb. While secrets are uncovered and faiths are shaken, the complications involved in thwarting Kluehnn grow no smaller. Stewart skillfully toggles between her four main characters, but the points of connection between each of their plot lines occasionally feel forced and strain credulity. Still, readers will find much to chew on here. Agent: Juliet Mushens, Mushens Entertainment. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 09/12/2025 | Details & Permalink

Taking a detour from all things cozy, Thorne (Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea) amps up the tension and danger in this fast-paced standalone fantasy. Sgt. Nix Marr swore she would never take another assignment in the Crypt, the deep sea mines underneath the submerged city of Fall and the primary source of ichoron, a metallic substance with seemingly limitless applications. Her last deployment to the mines ended with her best friend dead and Nix’s heart broken by her royal ex, Subarch Kessandra “Kess” Marie Vendermere Biltean III. Now, however, Kess needs Nix’s help investigating a massacre in Fall, and she’s not above using bribery to get her way. Nix reluctantly agrees to act as Kess’s bodyguard aboard the Luminosity, the submersible that makes the three day trip to Fall. They soon discover that the ship offers no safety from the violence sweeping Fall as an illness that “incites violent rage in its victims” spreads among the passengers, putting both women in terrible danger. Thorne skillfully weaves together horror, mystery, and sapphic romance to create an un-put-downable fantasy. Hannah Whitten fans should snap this up. Agent: Taryn Fagerness, Taryn Fagerness Agency. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 09/12/2025 | Details & Permalink

Get Out meets The Matrix in this solid excursion into dark academia from Cole (So Let Them Burn). At 21, Ellory Morgan is older than the other freshmen at Warren University in Hartford, Conn. Additionally, her status as a Jamaican immigrant in the awkward American tax bracket where she can’t afford college on her own but doesn’t qualify for financial aid makes her feel she doesn’t belong on the Ivy League campus. As the school year progresses, she experiences increasingly peculiar events: strange hallucinations, feelings of déjà vu, a tattoo on her neck that vanishes as soon as she sees it, and hidden notes in her own handwriting that she doesn’t remember writing. One of these notes claims her hated academic rival, Hudson Graves, will help her. Together they dive into Warren’s unusual occult history and, in a late and somewhat clichéd twist, discover the startling truth about the Goodwin scholarship that brought Ellory to campus. The resulting tale doesn’t break any new ground, but it competently engages with the tropes of the genre, hits expected beats cleanly, and delivers a heartfelt if obvious moral about inequality. Cole’s fans will be pleased. Agent: Emily Forney, BookEnds Literary. (Dec.)

Reviewed on 09/12/2025 | Details & Permalink

Summers (The City of Stardust) loads this enchanting fantasy with sensory details and imaginative lore about London’s underground network of magical bookstores. Chiron’s bookshop is a mystical place trading in tomes imbued with magic that can change readers’ fortunes. Chiron’s disgraced ex-protégé, Cassandra Fairfax, has been exiled from the store and now uses her skills as an ink magic reader, someone able to decipher these text-based enchantments, to get by via extralegal means. Shortly after she’s attacked by a stranger, the store suddenly reappears to her, but it’s deserted and in disrepair. As it turns out, Chiron has been killed and he’s willed the store to Cassandra. She then encounters the exasperating yet charismatic Lowell Sharpe, who warns her about the dangers of her running the bookshop without any experience and offers to buy it. Meanwhile, a shadowy society comprising the owners of London’s other magical bookstores plots the best way to remove her from her new role. With enemies to dodge, Chiron’s murder to solve, her own origins to discover, and Lady Fate presiding over it all, Cassandra has her hands full. It’s perhaps one subplot too many, but Summers’s feisty protagonist anchors this elaborate urban fantasy, and her vivid prose makes the dust and mustiness of the antique bookshop palpable. Fans of Genevieve Cogman’s Invisible Library series should take note. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 09/12/2025 | Details & Permalink

Comics writer Bunn (the Uncanny X-Men series) makes his full-length prose debut with this over-the-top shocker crafted from the well-worn template of the small-town horror novel. Wilson Island, an otherwise placid vacation destination in North Carolina’s Outer Banks, is rocked one summer week by the discovery of the gruesomely eviscerated corpses of several locals. The murderer—an anonymous masked assailant who calls himself “Mr. No-Face”—serves as one of the novel’s narrators. But which of the island’s residents is he? Denny Danvers, the local drug dealer dubbed Warlock by his clients? Madhouse Quinn, the unofficial leader of the island’s unhoused community? Or maybe someone as seemingly normal as art student Dean Kramer, whose unrequited love for island sweetheart Willa Hanson is complicated by the revelation that she’s pregnant by her irresponsible boyfriend Kenny Smythe? While readers puzzle over the killer’s identity and motives, Bunn introduces another plot wrinkle: a surging rat and roach infestation suggests the island may be under siege by unnatural forces. The story barrels toward a splattery conclusion that ties together all of its weird phenomena but makes most of the characters expendable fodder for the under-explained final horror. This is recommended only for the strong of stomach. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 09/12/2025 | Details & Permalink

This wonderfully chilling and entirely immersive feminist horror story from Quotah (Bride of the Sea) opens with seven-year-old Layla, who dreams of owning a donkey. Readers follow Layla as she grows up and her innocence is shattered by a string of murders that upend her small town over and over again. Each time, it is a man who is killed, and each time, the scent of a different perfume lingers at the crime scene, convincing the community that the killer must be a woman. It is a perverse pleasure to try to unpick this mystery alongside Layla, who vacillates between believing the town’s whispers about a vengeful murderess who may be half-jinn and dismissing these speculations. Quotah dances on the line between supernatural and psychological horror and masterfully incorporates elements of folklore into the everyday pains of growing up as a young woman under patriarchy. The characters are well drawn, the suspense is taut, and a great final twist proves very fun. There’s a lot here to sink one’s teeth into. Agent: Steven Chudney, Chudney Agency. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 09/12/2025 | Details & Permalink

Light fantastical elements form the scaffolding for this lovely multigenerational story of Taiwanese immigrant women from Hung (Wild Life, as Opal Wei). Perimenopausal midwife Leeann Wu notices a strange glow occasionally emanating from her hands at the same time a series of bizarre occurrences plague her small hometown. There are an unusually high number of accidents, an epidemic of sleeplessness, and lightning from nowhere. In the midst of this oddness, Leeann navigates her difficult relationship with her ob-gyn mother, anticipates empty nesting after her daughter heads to college, and has intense dreams of a mystical great-aunt she never met. She also starts a sweet romance with the brother of one of her birthing clients, and discovers her glow intensifies when they are intimate. The magical mystery adds ballast to this gentle interpersonal tale and leads to a satisfyingly dramatic conclusion. Middle-aged readers unused to seeing heroines at this stage of life will find Leeann’s mix of disorientation and self-discovery, caught between the needs of her mother and daughter, especially resonant. Exploring heritage, inherited trauma, and women’s power, this is a treat. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 09/12/2025 | Details & Permalink

Hugo and Nebula Award winner Kingfisher (Hemlock & Silver) provides all the chills, thrills, and laughs she’s known for in this dextrous dark fantasy. In heroine Selena’s “last thrash toward self-preservation,” she takes her dog and flees her emotionally abusive fiancé, Walter, for her aunt Amelia’s house in the tiny Western town of Quartz Creek, only to find that Amelia died a year ago. Selena is broke and out of options, so she stays in her aunt’s abandoned home, slowly learning about Amelia through her travel journals—including the dark truth about her literally draining relationship with the mysterious “S,” who now wants Selena to take her aunt’s place. This time out, Kingfisher’s prose is as stark as the desert setting, but still preserves all the usual charming creativity of her worldbuilding, including a host of supernatural spirits, like the friendly little squash gods in Selena’s garden. The quirky townsfolk similarly delight (Selena’s Grandma Billy is particularly hilarious) and “S”—eventually revealed to be the eponymous Snake-Eater, another desert deity—makes for a particularly sinister villain: amoral, vicious, and terrifying. Kingfisher remains extremely good at what she does. Agent: Helen Breitwieser, Cornerstone Literary. (Dec.)

Reviewed on 09/05/2025 | Details & Permalink

Lawless (the Gaul Song Trilogy) returns to historical Ireland in this engrossing series-launching epic fantasy, exploring through myth and legend the tumultuous, war-torn years of the late 1100s. Two magical immortal races battle for control of the High Kingship. The malevolent Fomorians, led by Donnchad, a wielder of fire magic, are opposed by the Descendants of the Tuatha Dé Danann, led by formidable warrior Broccan. Broccan and the Descendants have a secret weapon: Broccan’s cousin, Isolde, who was born 150 years ago apparently without magical powers and foretold to save Ireland. Isolde vanished in her youth but has recently reappeared. Can she turn the tide in the war? Told through the sensitively rendered narrative voices of Donnchad, his sorceress mother, Broccan, and late-adolescent Isolde, this clash of supernatural sects parallels Isolde’s painful and loss-filled coming-of-age. Lawless intercuts the Fomorians’ murderous pursuit of Isolde with entrancing retellings of Irish legends, twining them into a rich literary tapestry. Historical fantasy fans will find this world both heartbreakingly realistic and irresistibly magical. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 08/29/2025 | Details & Permalink