One For All: A Review

Tania de Batz is most comfortable with a sword in her hand. When she practices with her father, a former Musketeer, Tania knows she is more than the “sick girl” with the sudden and debilitating dizziness that no one can explain.

But no number of drills or practice positions can prepare Tania when her father is violently killed with the murdered escaping into the night. Without Papa to champion her, Tania isn’t as confident that she can follow in his footsteps as a Musketeer–an uncertainty that grows when she finds out his last wish is for her to attend finishing school.

Upon arriving at L’Académie des Mariées, Tania soon realizes that it is no ordinary finishing school. Instead of preparing girls like Tania for marriage, the Academie is secret training a new type of Musketeer: one that most men are all to quick to take for granted.

With the other young women, Tania refines her swordwork alongside skills like disguise and seduction to protect France from outside threats. Instead of feeling stifled or othered at the school Tania feels like she’s found her purpose with girls who feel like sisters and new ways to navigate her chronic illness.

When the students are tasked with stopping an assassination plot, Tania’s loyalties will be tested as she tries to gather information from a dangerously attractive target. Training as a Musketeer is everything Tania has ever wanted, but even she isn’t sure if she should trust her newly honed instincts or her heart in One For All (2022) by Lillie Lainoff.

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One For All is Lainoff’s debut novel. Tania’s first person narration immediately draws readers into her richly detailed world while making the frustrations and limitations of her chronic illness immediately understandable. As the author’s note explains, Tania’s experiences are informed by Lainoff’s own life as a competitive fencer who has postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. Tania and most main characters are white. There’s some variety of skintones among secondary characters as well as characters across the LGBTQ+ spectrum.

This gender-flipped retelling of The Three Musketeers imagines a world where girls like Tania are able to find sisterhood and purpose operating in the shadows. With the Musketeers limited in their reach compared to the peak of their power, the stakes have never felt higher as Tania works to earn her place at the Academie. High action and cinematic swordfights move the story along while tender moments between Tania and her fellow Academie students show the importance of community and friendship. Tania’s illness is integral to her character and explored with nuance as she not only has to learn the limitations of her own body but also explain them to her new friends so that they can all work together.

Hints of romance permeate the story but at its core One For All is a story of empowerment and sisterhood where one girl learns that coming into her own can change everything.

Possible Pairings: Valiant Ladies by Melissa Gray, The Game of Hope by Sarah Gulland, The Reckless Kind by Carly Heath, Courting Darkness by Robin LaFevers, Of Better Blood by Susan Moger, Scavenge the Stars by Tara Sim

The Last Tale of the Flower Bride: A Review

Once upon a time, an heiress named Indigo found a scholar who would become her bridegroom. He’d been lost long enough by then to grow comfortable in the dark; long enough he wasn’t sure anyone could lure him out. But Indigo was never the kind of woman to turn away from a challenge.

Coming into Indigo’s world of wealth and decadence is a feast. And he is always hungry. A single moment of either madness or mystery had shaped his life. Ever since, he’d sought proof of the impossible and bent his whole life around the feeding of it.

The heiress and the scholar. It sounds like the start of a fairy tale.

For years, that was enough for the bridegroom.

Until Indigo is summoned back to her childhood home, the House of Dreams, to tend to her dying aunt–the aunt who told Indigo years ago that she was grateful for her blindness. Because she’d never have to look at Indigo ever again.

The decaying house is filled with ghosts of luxury, memories of a grandiose past. It is also filled with secrets that are impossible to ignore. And haunting memories including a girl no one wants to talk about: Azure–Indigo’s oldest and dearest friend. Azure, who no one has seen in years.

Two girls that were closer than sisters, until they weren’t. A marriage built on a foundation of secrets and the bridegroom’s promise to never look too closely at Indigo’s past. A story that, once revealed, changes everything. A fairy tale that will leave its own scars in The Last Tale of the Flower Bride (2023) by Roshani Chokshi.

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The Last Tale of the Flower Bride is Chokshi’s first adult novel. The story alternates between the bridegroom and Azure’s narratives on dual timelines as both the past and present build to a powerful finale.

Themes of privilege and agency loom large throughout the narrative as Azure is pulled into Indigo’s world of impossible wealth and status when they are both still children. The bridegroom offers a different facet of Indigo–the one main character without a narrative point of view–as their secrets and experiences of magic in both the human world and the mystical other world heavily influence their marriage.

Atmospheric descriptions and lush imagery bring Indigo’s opulent and often dangerous world to life with the plot moving inexorably forward. Both the characters and plot of The Last Tale of the Flower Bride are heavily influenced by fairy tales with allusions to classic fairy tale devices, gender flipped elements of Bluebeard and, more generally, a contemplation of what it means to engage with fairy tales as a modern girl and woman–in other words as a person typically othered or dismissed within the fairy tale sphere. This last element in particular is artfully teased out in Azure and Indigo’s changing understanding of Susan Pevensie (the Pevensie child assumed to be rejected by Narnia as she grows older) in CS Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia as well as in their burgeoning familiarity with the magical other world.

Filled with rich prose and vivid emotion, The Last Tale of the Flower Bride is a dynamic exploration of magic and affection; a story told through the dual lenses of wonder and the mundanity that makes up both a marriage and a friendship.

Possible Pairings: Book of Night by Holly Black, The Birdcage by Eve Chase, The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller, Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, The Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by VE Schwab, The Death of Jane Laurence by Caitlin Starling

*An advance listening copy of the title was provided by the publisher through Libro.fm*

Mindy Makes Some Space: A Graphic Novel Review

Mindy Kim is pretty sure she has it all figured out. Things are going great with PAWs, the dog walking business she runs with her best friends Gabby Jordan and Priya Gupta. And things are always great with Mindy’s mom–it’s always been just the two of them at home and that’s just how Mindy likes it.

Except things are changing for Mindy at home and on the PAWs front. And she’s not sure she likes it. In fact, she’s pretty positive she hates it.

First Mindy’s mom has met someone–a total dork with an admittedly exceptional (and enormous) cat named Chonk. And as their relationship progresses Mindy isn’t sure she wants to make room for someone else in all of the family traditions she has with her mom.

Then Hazel starts at school. Gabby and Priya like the new girl immediately, but Mindy isn’t sure how to feel about sharing her best friends with someone else–especially when Hazel wants to join PAWs too.

With everything changing, Mindy’s resistance to change could lead to some big upheaval at home and with PAWs that could turn into a cat-tastrophe in .

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Mindy Makes Some Space is the second book in the PAWs series which begins with Gabby Gets It Together. Although this book builds on what comes before, Mindy provides a helpful recap for any readers who decide to dive in without reading the first volume. Mindy and her mom are Korean, Gabby is biracial (her dad is shown with brown skin while her mom is lighter), Priya is Indian. The story takes place in Canada. Hazel uses a wheelchair.

Mindy has a lot of growing to do in this installment as she tries to deal with new people in her life. While totally realistic, her behavior can be pretty cringe-inducing with overt rudeness to her mom’s new boyfriend and hurtful snubs to keep Hazel out of PAWs.

Hazel is a great addition to the group (even if it takes Mindy some time to admit it) but, afraid of losing what she has with Gabby and Priya, Mindy does everything she can to keep Hazel out of PAWs. This includes questioning how Hazel will be able to walk dogs when she is in a wheelchair and instead trying to leave her to walk Chonk all by herself. While the ableism in Mindy’s behavior is pretty clear, it isn’t addressed by name which felt like a missed moment. Hazel does eventually confront Mindy about her behavior (and Gabby and Priya about their complicity by not speaking up). By the end of this installment, Mindy acknowledges her own bad behavior and that she’s going to have to work hard to fully make it up to Hazel.

Mindy Makes Some Space is another fun installment with a lot of humor while also tackling the prickly growing pains that can come with changing families and changing friend dynamics.

Possible Pairings: Home Sweet Forever Home by Rachele Alpine and Addy Rivera Sonda, Best Babysitters Ever by Caroline Cala, The Great Pet Heist by Emily Ecton and David Mottram, Real Friends by Shannon Hale, LeUyen Pham, and Jane Poole, Clara Humble and the Not-So-Super Powers by Anna Humphrey and Lisa Cinar, All’s Faire in Middle School by Victoria Jamieson, Allergic: A Graphic Novel by Megan Wagner Lloyd and Michelle Mee Nutter, Kristy’s Great Idea by Ann M. Martin and Raina Telgemeier, Click by Kayla Miller, Good Dogs with Bad Haircuts Rachel Wenitsky, David Sidorov, Tor Freeman, Original Recipe by Jessica Young

Nothing More to Tell: A Review

Four years ago Brynn’s favorite teacher at Saint Ambrose was murdered. Her ex-best friend, Tripp Talbot, was one of the three students who found Mr. Larkin’s body. The case was never solved. Brynn and Tripp haven’t spoken since that horrible day.

Now, Brynn’s family is moving back to town after her dad’s promotion leaving Brynn to complete her senior year at the one place she never wanted to revisit.

Returning to all of the bad memories is bad enough but Brynn is also still trying to figure out how to salvage her dream of attending Northwestern’s prestigious journalism school after last year’s dick pic scandal ruined her previously sparkling portfolio.

An internship at a popular true-crime show might be exactly what Brynn needs to rehab her online search results (it turns out it’s hard to get past being a BuzzFeed punchline) and find out what really happened to Mr. Larkin all those years ago.

As she dives into the past, Brynn realizes she might not have known her favorite teach as well as she thought. But the more she gets re-acquainted with Tripp, the clearer it is that he’s still hiding something in Nothing More to Tell (2022) by Karen M. McManus.

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McManus’s latest standalone mystery alternates between Brynn and Tripp’s first person narrations (including flashbacks from Tripp four years ago leading up to the discovery of Mr. Larkin’s body). Brynn and Tripp are white with more diversity among the supporting cast.

Nothing More to Tell makes great use of Brynn and Tripp’s limited point of view to draw readers into the story and maintain suspense as the details surrounding Mr. Larkin’s murder are slowly revealed. In addition to solving the murder, Brynn also struggles to untangle what exactly went wrong with her friendship with Tripp all those years ago adding another layer to this character-driven mystery. Although much of the main mystery is resolved off page, Brynn and Tripp’s character arcs are so well executed that it hardly detracts from the plot

With secrets, lies, and numerous red herrings Nothing More to Tell is another satisfying mystery from a master of the craft.

Possible Pairings: Promise Boys by Nick Brooks, Killing Time by Brenna Ehrlich, They Wish They Were Us by Jessica Goodman, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson, This is Why We Lie by Gabriella Lepore, The Lies We Tell by Katie Zhao

*An advance copy of this title was provided by the publisher for review consideration*

Gabby Gets It Together: A Graphic Novel Review

Bookish Gabby Jordan, athletic Priya Gupta, and trendy Mindy Kim don’t have a lot in common when they first meet at school. That is until the girls realize they all adore animals even if none of them can have a pet of their own.

Desperate to get in some face time with literally any furry friends, the girls come up with a few plans. After their initial attempts don’t go as well as they’d hoped, PAWs (Pretty Awesome Walkers) is born to fill the gap in their neighborhood for afterschool dog walking.

While the dogs are great, it turns out running a business can be hard–even when it’s with your best friends. With arguments about uniforms, schedules, and commitment to the business it’s starting to feel like there’s not even any time left to spend with their doggy clientele.

When things (and leashes) get out of hand Gabby, Priya, and Mindy will have to work together if they want to save their business and their friendship in Gabby Gets It Together (2022) by Michele Assarasakorn and Nathan Fairbairn.

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Gabby Gets It Together is the first of what will hopefully be a long running series. This volume introduces all of the characters (including their main dog clients) and the club leaving lots of room to grow in later volumes. Gabby is biracial (her dad is shown with brown skin while her mom is lighter), Priya is Indian, and Mindy is Korean. The story takes place in Canada.

Voiceovers from Gabby and snappy dialogue move this story along while colorful and detailed artwork create engrossing panels on every page. All of the animals PAWs encounter are drawn with loving care–if you aren’t an animal lover when you start this graphic novel, you might be by the end!

In addition to discovering many furry friends, the members of PAWs navigate the ins and outs of new friendship and a new business throughout the story as they work with parents to figure out realistic workloads and communicate with clients what they can and can’t do. All of this is presented in a way that’s realistic for a group of pre-teens and also offers a potential framework for any young readers who might be inspired to try starting their own dog walking venture.

With its sense of humor and focus on friendship, Gabby Gets It Together–and the rest of this series–make a great read-a-like for the classic Baby-Sitters’ Club (in prose or graphic form) and titles like Real Friends by Shannon Hale. Highly Recommended.

Possible Pairings: Home Sweet Forever Home by Rachele Alpine and Addy Rivera Sonda, Best Babysitters Ever by Caroline Cala, The Great Pet Heist by Emily Ecton and David Mottram, Real Friends by Shannon Hale, LeUyen Pham, and Jane Poole, Clara Humble and the Not-So-Super Powers by Anna Humphrey and Lisa Cinar, All’s Faire in Middle School by Victoria Jamieson, Allergic: A Graphic Novel by Megan Wagner Lloyd and Michelle Mee Nutter, Kristy’s Great Idea by Ann M. Martin and Raina Telgemeier, Click by Kayla Miller, Good Dogs with Bad Haircuts Rachel Wenitsky, David Sidorov, Tor Freeman, Original Recipe by Jessica Young

Last Chance Dance: A Review

Smarting from her parents’ divorce in eighth grade, Leila Bean thinks it must be fate when she meets cute Dev Rajan while shopping for schools supplies the summer before freshman year. A habitual viewer of reality dating competitions, she knows better than to waste the opportunity.

Four years later, Leila and Dev are easily their high school’s most unproblematic couple. Which is why Leila is devastated when Dev decides to break up with her just before graduation instead of taking their relationship long-distance during college. Aside from the confusion of being out of a committed relationship for essentially the first time, Leila is devastated that this will be her biggest memory from high school.

Leila is skeptical when her best friend suggests the distraction Leila needs is to take part in her school’s annual Last Chance Dance. As its name suggests, the dance will give Leila a chance to match with 3 unrequited crushes (if the interest is mutual) and one algorithm-chosen wild card.

No one is more surprised than Leila when she’s matched with all of her crushes–and her longtime nemesis. Going on dates with athletic Kai, activist Mason, and bookstagrammer Eva is fun but the biggest surprise for Leila is that class clown Tre’–orchestrator of her biggest humiliation in eighth grade (and possibly her entire life)–might be an actual contender for a date and maybe even more in Last Chance Dance (2023) by Lakita Wilson.

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Leila and most of the characters in her Maryland neighborhood school are Black; characters fall across the LGBTQ+ spectrum including bisexual Eva and “masculine presenting lesbian” Bree. Dev is cued as Indian American and Hindu.

Opinions will vary but this adult reader was unable to willingly suspend enough disbelief to buy into a school sanctioning a very complicated dance like the Last Chance Dance and balked at Leila’s pride in acting like half of an old married couple with Dev at the novel’s start. While some readers might have a hard time getting in Leila’s head when it comes to her singular focus on relationships, the story does a lot to tease out her motivations and flesh out her character.

Wilson’s breezy narrative and the inventive premise ultimately make a winning combination in Last Chance Dance where Leila learns how to trust again while figuring out how to define herself outside of her relationship status.

Possible Pairings: Dramatically Ever After by Isabel Bandeira, Starry Eyes by Jenn Bennett, Happily Ever Afters by Elise Bryant, I Wanna Be Where You Are by Kristina Forest, Today Tonight Tomorrow by Rachel Lynn Solomon

*A more condensed version of this review appeared as a review in an issue of School Library Journal*

We Weren’t Looking to Be Found: A Review

“Meaning isn’t something you’re handed. It’s what you make out of tragedy.”

Dani is used to having everything she wants. Including easy access to alcohol and drugs whenever she wants. Sure, the pressure to be good enough for her parents and earn her place in the richest and most famous Black family in Text is a lot. But Dani has it under control. At least she thinks she does until her latest party ends with her close to blackout drunk in front of her aunt’s house.

Camila has been auditioning and failing to impress the same prestigious conservatory for years. Her Colombian American family has been saving for tuition. But even they don’t know that she’s still trying. Somehow, getting exactly what she wants still doesn’t work out. And it still isn’t enough to keep Camila from hurting herself when things don’t work out.

Dani and Camila have nothing in common until they become roommates at Peach Tree Hills, a treatment facility in Georgia.

Unwilling to trust each other with their secrets, the girls slowly learn to trust when they are united in trying to solve a years-old mystery. Someone at Peach Tree Hills left behind a music box filled with old letters. As Dani and Camila work together to find clues to the former residents past, they might also find the pieces they need to heal–and maybe even hope for their futures in We Weren’t Looking to Be Found (2022) by Stephanie Kuehn.

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Kuehn’s latest novel alternates between Dani and Camila’s first person narrations. We Weren’t Looking to Be Found deals with addiction, substance abuse, self-harm, and suicidal ideation.

Camila is a dancer which adds drama to the story–particularly with her downward spiral stemming from her parents assuming she has given up on her conservatory dreams and spending the money they had saved on her tuition on a home remodel instead (one of the strangest choices in the entire narrative)–but is not further interrogated in terms of health issues or cultural pressures.

We Weren’t Looking to Be Found is a thoughtful exploration of mental health and treatment centering two teens of color. While the framing story of solving the mystery of the letters works as a device to bring Dani and Camila together, it also often feels contrived–an extra element that wraps up a bit too neatly compared to other elements in this story. Both girls realize that improving their mental health–and staying healthy–will take work and require big changes. This is particularly true for Dani as she has to take a hard look at her own role in her self-destructive choices. Camila’s path is not as smooth and not as resolved by the end of this story although Kuehn does end on a hopeful note emphasizing the frienship that has developed between the teens.

While there are no easy answers in We Weren’t Looking to Be Found, this story does a lot to destigmatize the need for mental health with its honest portrayal of two teens trying to get help and the frienship that helps them through.

Possible Pairings: Little and Lion by Brandy Colbert, Whisper to Me by Nick Lake, We Are All So Good at Smiling by Amber McBride, The Memory of Light by Francisco X. Stork

Required Reading for the Disenfranchised Freshman: A Review

Savannah Howard had her heart set on attending and HBCU once she finished high school. But she knows she can’t turn down a full ride to an Ivy League university like Wooddale–even if she also knows she’ll be one of the only Black students on campus. As her Mama always reminds her, Savannah has worked hard and she deserves to be at Wooddale as much as all of the rich students. Maybe more since she spent her entire high school career studying hard to make sure she could afford college.

Reminding herself that she deserves to be at Wooddale only goes so far when she starts facing microaggressions from her mostly wealthy, mostly white classmates almost immediately. Savannah is used to rude comments from people like her snobby roommate, that she can handle. Defacing the statue commemorating Wooddale’s first Black president is different. And Savannah isn’t going to stand for it.

Strongly suspecting the rich, white student body president Lucas is behind the vandalism, Savannah creates #WooddaleConfessions to raise awareness and enlists help from Black sophomores Tasha and Benji to try and find some concrete evidence. Faced by opposition from the university administration and threats from Lucas, whose family funds Savannah’s scholarship, only leaves Savannah more determined to uncover the truth in Required Reading for the Disenfranchised Freshman (2022) by Kristen R. Lee.

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Required Reading for the Disenfranchised Freshman is Lee’s debut novel. Readers who appreciate Savannah’s relationship with her best friend B’onca should also check out Lee’s companion novel, Sun Keep Rising, which focuses on B’onca.

Narrated by Savannah, Required Reading for the Disenfranchised Freshman is a fast-paced novel that blends mystery and activism as Savannah struggles to do what she knows is right while maintaining her scholarship and her place at Wooddale. In addition to facing Wooddale’s racist past, Savannah also grapples with income disparity with her privileged classmates while she tries to navigate her first semester of college and make friends.

While some elements of the mystery and its resolution are heavily broadcast, Savannah’s journey to realize that Wooddale being the best school does not mean it’s the best place for her remains fully developed and satisfying.

Possible Pairings: Emergency Contact by Mary HK Choi, All-American Muslim Girl by Nadine Jolie Courtney, Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From by Jennifer De Leon, The Black Kids by Christina Hammonds Reed, Why We Fly by Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal, Hearts Unbroken by Cynthia Leitich Smith, Dear Martin by Nic Stone, This Place is Still Beautiful by Xixi Tan, Seton Girls by Charlene Thomas, Piecing Me Together by Renee Watson, In the Wild Light by Jeff Zentner, The Lies We Tell by Katie Zhao

Murder For the Modern Girl: A Review

Chicago, 1927 is a positutely marvelous place to find parties if you’re a flapper like Ruby. It’s also a city rampant with crime, corruption, and murder.

But Ruby can explain every single one of her murders. Honest.

In a time and place where women are always vulnerable, Ruby has found an unlikely niche for herself doling out vigilante justice between parties with a variety of poisons that have left a trail of unsolved crimes in her wake. She isn’t particularly worried about being caught. Not when her father, the state’s attorney, is the only one with a good head on his shoulders in Chicago’s law enforcement.

Which is why it’s not entirely surprising when someone targets Ruby and her father.

Luckily, Ruby isn’t just a pretty face or a vigilante. She’s her father’s protege as much as anything with her own keen eye for the law. One she’s ready to use to find whoever hurt her father. Unluckily, Ruby realizes that her brand of justice isn’t quite as anonymous as she thought after an encounter with a bland morgue technician in an alley.

Guy hasn’t used his real name–or his real face–for a long time. How can he when he’s working so hard to hide from his shameful past? Working in the morgue might be the break Guy needs to understand his strange shapeshifting ability. Until an exuberant flapper upends his careful plans.

Together this unlikely duo will have their hands full trying to fight corruption, find the would-be assassin, and keep themselves out of prison in Murder for the Modern Girl (2022) by Kendall Kulper.

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Murder for the Modern Girl alternates between Ruby and Guy’s first person narrations. All characters are assumed white.

Kulper delivers jazz age vibes and surprising fantasy elements in this story where Ruby uses her ability as a mind reader to deliver justice while Guy struggles to understand his own strange power–elements that are never fully explained or integrated into the story although they are key to the plot. Readers dive right into the fast-paced story with minimal backstory for either protagonist as the action keeps coming. Readers questioning Ruby’s motives may have a hard time getting on board with her status as a vigilante and, essentially, a serial killer but it is an arc that’s fully explored throughout the novel and does end with Ruby turning her back on her life of crime to fight for justice through more conventional means.

Filled with slang, speakeasies, and fabulous dresses, Murder for the Modern Girl is an inventive mystery filled feminist justice and more adventure than you can shake a stick at.

Possible Pairings: Blood and Moonlight by Erin Beaty, Born of Illusions by Teri A, Brown, A Forgery of Roses by Jessica S. Olson, Anatomy: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz, Spectacle by Jodie Lynn Zdrok

The Other Merlin: A Review

In the great kingdom of Camelot, Arthur is reluctant to embrace his position as prince and future king even after pulling the sword from the stone. He was drunk, it was a joke! How can an old sword mean he’s destined to be a great hero when he would much rather be a botanist who spends all his time in the library?

Lancelot is happy to flirt with almost anyone who crosses his path. Except the last time he picked very badly and everything went very wrong leaving him demoted to a castle guard instead of following his dreams of becoming a knight who will faithfully serve Arthur.

Emry Merlin’s future has never been as certain as her twin brother’s. It’s always been clear that Emmett would be the child to follow in their father’s footsteps serving as Camelot’s court wizard. Nevermind that Emry works harder and better when it comes to all things magic. Instead, Emry settles for using her magic to create alarmingly realistic stage effects.

At least, she used to.

With the sword out of the stone, things are changing in Camelot and Emmett is summoned to court to take up his role as court wizard. Except he can’t go. Which the current king, Uther, is not going to appreciate. At. All.

It seems simpler–and safer–for everyone if Emry go instead. It’s not hard to disguise herself as Emmett. It will only be a week. Except the longer Emry spends at court the more she’s caught up in the court’s intrigues and scandals, more drawn to Arthur’s inner circle, and even his longtime enemies like Lord Gawain. The more time Emry spends at court the more she learns about her magic. The more she finds herself drawn to Arthur.

When secrets are revealed and alliances threatened, Emry will have to choose between her own ambition and the prince she’s come to love in The Other Merlin (2021) by Robyn Schneider.

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The Other Merlin is the first book in Schneider’s Arthurian duology which continues in The Future King. Most characters are cued as white with characters falling across the LGBT spectrum notably including our narrator Emry who is bisexual.

With irreverent banter, anachronisms, and a healthy dose of teen spirit The Other Merlin is a fresh a take on familiar source material. Emry breathes new life into Camelot as she contemplates how privilege (especially in the form of wealth) and gender identity offer different characters wildly different opportunities. Emry knows she is as deserving, possibly more deserving, than her brother to act as court wizard. Whether the rest of Camelot will be able to see that beyond her gender remains to be seen in this first installment.

Multi-faceted characters, numerous side plots, and lots of action and humor make The Other Merlin a page-turning adventure. Readers faithful to the Arthurian canon may be flummoxed by Schneider’s numerous changes but those looking for an original retelling will appreciate her interpretations and updates.

Possible Pairings: Once & Future by AR Capetta and Cory McCarthy, Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst, Legendborn by Tracy Deonn, My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, Jodi Meadows, The Guinevere Deception by Kiersten White