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.

Find it on Bookshop.

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*

Hotel Magnifique: A Review

Janine “Jani” Lafayette always dreamed of a life beyond the small, idyllic village where she was born. But now, after four years of struggling to take care of herself and her younger sister Zosa in the port town of Durc, Jani dreams of quitting her job at the tannery and going back home.

When the Hotel Magnifique arrives in Durc, it feels like the answer to everything. Visiting a new destination every day, the hotel promises once-in-a-lifetime adventure and magic at every turn–with the price tag to match. Surely even working in such a place would have its own enchantments along with the chance, however slim, of one day stopping at the village Jani so foolishly left behind.

It’s a gamble Jani is willing to take. Until Zosa is hired on as a hotel singer. And Jani is not hired at all.

Following her sister is the only option but inside the hotel is nothing like Jani imagined. Instead of dazzling luxury, Jani is thrust into a world where every bit of glamour hides a dark secret. Including the horrifying unbreakable employee contracts.

Jani is determined to uncover the truth behind the hotel to free her sister and the other hotel staff. With nowhere to hide and no one to trust but Bel, a mysterious doorman with secrets–and loyalties–of his own, Jani will have to risk everything to break the hotel’s spells once and for all in Hotel Magnifique (2022) by Emily J. Taylor.

Find it on Bookshop.

Hotel Magnifique is Taylor’s debut novel. This standalone fantasy is set in a French-influenced world with characters of varying skin tones, body types, and sexual orientation. Jani and Zosa read as white. Bel is described as having brown skin and is bisexual.

Vibrant and richly described settings lend a sumptuous feel to this story as Jani is drawn in by the wonders of the magical hotel. The dark underside and pervasive menace of the hotel and the strange maître d’hôtel is slowly revealed with perfect pacing that amps up the tension and urgency of the story. Magical wonders contrast sharply with the grim violence of the hotel where magicians on staff are kept in line–and possibly slowly driven insane–with the removal of an eye or finger while continuing to deliver lavish illusions to hotel guests.

In a story where the backdrop and stakes gradually increase, Hotel Magnifique develops an intricate and engrossing magic system. Multifaceted characters and ample suspense further elevate this fantasy adventure.

Possible Pairings: The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert, Where Dreams Descend by Janella Angeles, Wings of Ebony by J. Elle, Cruel Illusions by Margie Fuston, Caraval by Stephanie Garber, Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalo, The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, A Forgery of Roses by Jessica S. Olson, The Splendor by Breeana Shields

Cruel Illusions: A Review

Ava knows that vampires are real because her mother was murdered by one. Ava has been training to kill a vampire in revenge ever since.

Fueled by anger and an equally strong drive to protect her younger brother Parker, Ava dwells on her revenge and the scant memories she has of her parents; the fragments of wonder she can still remember from their magic act.

Ava’s mother always told her that their tricks were only illusions but if vampires exist, can’t magic also be real?

The answer is yes.

As Ava learns more about magicians who wield actual magic as easily as she conjures coin illusions, Ava discovers that there’s little difference between a vampire and a magician. Especially when the two groups have been locked in a bloody feud for millennia.

Recruited by a troupe of dangerous magicians, brings Ava closer to everything she wants: real magic, true power, and a chance to finally avenge her mother’s murder.

But first she has to win a deadly competition to prove her mettle. The closer Ava gets to victory and vengeance, the more she wonders if she’s been chasing the wrong things in Cruel Illusions (2022) by Margie Fuston.

Find it on Bookshop.

Cruel Illusions is Fuston’s debut novel. Main characters are white with some diversity among the supporting cast including a queer couple in Ava’s new troupe.

Ava’s hurt is palpable in her first person narration as she struggle to reconcile the potential stability of their latest foster home with the possibility that Parker is ready to move on while Ava isn’t sure she’ll ever get past finding her mother’s bloody body in the woods. This conflict makes Ava an angry, sometimes reckless narrator who is quick to run into danger and slow to realize the potential harm. Lacking the confidencet to be truly self-aware, she’s unwilling to admit her own self-destructive tendencies that drive her to seek out magicians and vampires instead of the promise of a new family. Slow pacing and evocative descriptions keep the focus on Ava and her mysterious past. As she learns more about the magicians and her own unlikely role with them, she also begins to question if making herself hard has worked to make her tough or if it has just left her brittle and prone to hurt.

The meditative pace of the story as Ava tries to decide what kind of magician–and person–she wants to be contrasts sharply with the intense action of the magical competitions and the strong sense of unease that permeates the magicians’ headquarters.

Gothic imagery, suspense, and a brooding love interest with secrets of his own in Cruel Illusions underscore the suspense and drama of this story; a perfect choice for paranormal readers looking for a story where the stakes are high (and sharp).

Possible Pairings: Our Crooked Hearts by Melissa Albert, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black, The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, The Luminaries by Susan Dennard, Legendborn by Tracy Deonn, Race the Sands by Sarah Beth Durst, Caraval by Stephanie Garber, The Midnight Lie by Marie Rutkoski, Hotel Magnifique by Emily J. Taylor

The Hunger Between Us: A Review

A version of this review originally appeared in Horn Book:

Summer, 1942. Leningrad is entering its second year under siege with all supply routes in and out of the city blocked by Nazi forces. Glue mixed with dirt from a burnt down sugar factory is being sold on the black market as candy. Bread rations from the Soviet government have been reduced again and come from loaves that are more sawdust than flour.

Liza has learned from her mother to do whatever it takes to survive. She’s even hidden her mother’s death from authorities–burying the body herself–so that Liza can keep using her precious ration cards. With rumors of cannibals haunting the streets after curfew and the secret police enforcing order with strict brutality everyone in the city is desperate.

When Liza’s best friend Aka suggests trading “entertainment” for food from the secret police, Liza knows it’s a mistake. Her mother always said there are lines that shouldn’t be crossed. But after Aka disappears Liza will do anything to find her even if she has to confront the ugly truths of the siege and the cost of survival firsthand in The Hunger Between Us (2022) by Marina Scott.

Find it on Bookshop.

The Hunger Between Us is Scott’s debut novel. All characters are cued as white (and Russian, of course).

Short, fast-paced chapters drive this novel as Liza scrambles to survive and searches for Aka. In a city rife with desperation, questions of morality exist alongside survival as Liza must decide what she is willing to trade both for information about Aka and for food.

With a body already ravaged by symptoms of starvation, Liza becomes an unreliable narrator as she tries to cut through the fog of hunger and fatigue. With no easy paths forward, much of this suspenseful story is mired in the daily brutality of the siege as Liza tries to find her own moral compass and cling to hope where she can.

The Hunger Between Us operates in moral grey areas as Liza and everyone she meets along the way confront the fact that the line between “good” and “bad” becomes increasingly malleable as desperation climbs; an excellent (fictional) counterpoint to MT Anderson’s thoroughly researched Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad.

The Red Palace: A Review

Joseon (Korea), 1758. Everyone is listening in the palace.

With secrets and treachery in every chamber, entering the palace means walking a path stained in blood. Eighteen-year-old Hyeon hopes it will be worth it. After years of studious work, Hyeon has earned her status as a palace nurse–a position that she hopes might help her gain her estranged father’s approval, if not his respect.

After four women are brutally murdered in the public medical office under the dark of night, Hyeon’s friend and mentor Nurse Jeongsu becomes the prime suspect. Determined to clear her teacher’s name before it’s too late, Hyeon is thrust into the center of the palace’s dangerous politics as she starts her own investigation.

Unearthing palace secrets with help from young police inspector Eojin could cost Hyeon everything, especially when the pair finds evidence incriminating the Crown Prince. Together Hyeon and Eojin will have to confront the palace’s darkest truths if they want to solve the murders in The Red Palace (2022) by June Hur.

Find it on Bookshop.

The Red Palace is Hur’s latest standalone mystery. Set in eighteenth century Korea, Hur draws inspiration from the actual life of Prince Sado while bringing both her setting and characters vibrantly to life. Hur carefully details the history of Prince Sado in an author’s note at the end of the novel. The audiobook, narrated by Michelle H. Lee, offers a rich listening experiences–particularly for readers unfamiliar with Korean pronunciation. 

Hyeon’s first person narration immediately pulls readers into the action with tension that doesn’t ease until the novel’s powerful conclusion. As an illegitimate daughter, Hyeon is keenly aware of her status within Joseon’s patriarchal society where familial ties and caste are everything. Still, she rejects these constructs in order to fight for what she believes in and try to save Nurse Jeongsu.

Steady pacing, dramatic reveals, and Hyeon’s determination make The Red Palace a page turner while Hur’s careful interrogation of the limits placed on Hyeon and other young women in Joseon elevate this story into a multifaceted and truly immersive work of historical fiction. This dynamic story is rounded out with subtle hints of romance (and mutual respect) between Hyeon and Eojin and Hyeon’s changing understanding of her own status within her family.

The Red Palace is a fantastic blend of mystery and historical fiction highlighting the best parts of both genres in a powerful combination that makes this story unforgettable. Highly recommended.

Possible Pairings: Foul Lady Fortune by Chloe Gong, Descendant of the Crane by Joan He, Splinters of Scarlet by Emily Bain Murphy, Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan, Four Dead Queens by Astrid Scholte, Spectacle by Jodie Lynn Zdrok

This Golden State: A Review

“I didn’t even know the choices, because I didn’t have the information.”

Poppy has grown up with five family rules:

1. No using your real name.
2. No staying in one place too long.
3. If something’s weird, take one thing and run to the meeting spot.
4. Keeping our family together is everything.
5. Don’t ask about the past. For your own safety. It’s the smallest mistake that will get us caught.

Lying constantly, hiding all the time, always waiting for one disastrous slip up hasn’t left much room for seventeen-year-old Poppy to ask questions. When she was little it all seemed normal. Now, Poppy has her little sister Emma and her parents. What more does she need?

Right away, Poppy knows that their latest move is different. Her parents never answer Poppy’s questions but once they arrive in California, Poppy has even more: like how a room prepared in a safe house can feel more like hers than anywhere else she’s ever lived and why it feels like pieces of her family’s secrets are waiting to be discovered.

With her parents distracted, Poppy has more freedom than she’s used to with a chance to attend an advanced math class, earn her own money, and maybe make a real friend in the unlikely form of ultra-wealthy and popular Harry. Family has always been enough for Poppy. It has to be. But as Poppy begins to dig deeper into her parents’ past with a secret DNA test and to think more about her own desires, Poppy also realizes that no secret can be kept forever in This Golden State (2022) by Marit Weisenberg.

Find it on Bookshop.

This Golden State is a tense standalone novel narrated by Poppy. The Winslow family and most characters are cued as white with Harry’s DNA results showing ancestry going back to Jamaica, South India, and Europe.

Perfect pacing and an urgent, close-focus narrative amps up the tension immediately as readers are drawn into Poppy’s world where nothing can be taken at face value. While family secrets and the looming results from Poppy’s DNA test drive the plot, this is ultimately a story about a girl who is leaning to dream and understanding how much bigger her world can be. As Poppy tries to keep up with her wealthier classmates who have had more consistent schooling, Poppy also starts to unpack the privilege that comes with stability and everything that she has lost growing up on the run–losses that her younger sister Emma has already begun to chafe under.

Harry gives Poppy a window into a world she knows she can never inhabit living the way she currently does–one fileld with opportunity and growth. Brief moments with Harry’s verbally abusive father also underscore to Poppy how much her parents have sacrificed to keep their family safe and intact. Weisengerg thoughtfully unpacks Poppy’s loyalty and deep love for her parents alongside her growing resentment at their rules and how they have to live. As she learns more about her parents’ roles in leading the family to this point, Poppy also has to learn how to maintain her affection and fond memories while leaving room for the anger that comes with understanding.

This Golden State is a taut exercise in suspense where family is everything. Until it isn’t. While the payoff for all of Poppy’s questions and investigating can feel anticlimactic, This Golden State is a story that will stay with readers long after the open-ended conclusion. Recommended for readers seeking a thriller focused on tension instead of scares.

Possible Pairings: Don’t Look Back by Jennifer L. Armentrout, Love and Other Perishable Items by Laura Buzo, My Mechanical Romance by Alexene Farol Follmuth, The Safest Lifes by Megan Miranda, The Liar’s Daughter by Megan Cooley Peterson, Remember Me Gone by Stacy Stokes, In the Wild Light by Jeff Zentner

Seton Girls: A (WIRoB) Review

This piece originally appeared in the Washington Independent Review of Books:

Seton Academic High is an elite prep school with an affluent and mostly white student body. With numerous teams, extracurriculars, and a student paper with thousands of subscribers, Seton is best known for its Varsity (always capitalized) football team. And with good reason. The team has been on a winning streak for twelve years–undefeated in every game leading up to the state playoffs.

Sixteen-year-old Aly Jacobs has always felt special being a part of Seton which was never a given for her the way it is for some of Seton’s legacy students. Aly and her boyfriend J already stand out as some of the only Black students–especially ones being bussed into Seton from a poorer neighborhood. Aly has always felt the pinch, keenly aware that she lacks the disposable cash to keep up with her classmates; knowing that she and J will never live closer enough to Seton to be true insiders on all of the inside jokes and routines because “it’s hard when you live an hour away, and you don’t have a car, and you don’t have twenty dollars in spare change for a pastry, and you can’t be at the coffee shop or the moves or the Galeria for pictures like these.” But every long commute, every missed hangout will be worth it because a Seton education is the first step to opportunity.

Aly deals with imposter syndrome as a junior editing the school paper while J is already getting attention as the next Varsity quarterback. Will J be able to keep the team’s undefeated streak alive? Will he take Varsity to new levels as the first Black quarterback in the school’s history? No one knows yet. Either way Parker Adams–the younger brother of the now legendary Cooper Adams who started Seton’s streak all those years ago–plans to make his own mark first.

Parker’s dream of eclipsing his brother takes a darker turn when the schoolyear starts with rumors that Parker hooked up with Britt MacDougal–his longtime girlfriend Michelle Rodriguez’s best friend–over the summer. As the school’s most popular clique fractures everything students thought they knew about Seton begins to erode. Aly learns more about Seton’s history as she befriends social outcast Britt. As their bonds deepen Aly questions the importance of Seton’s traditions and history and if her own legacy will be helping to perpetuate Seton’s privilege or speaking out against its insidious past in Seton Girls (2022) by Charlene Thomas.

Find it on Bookshop.

Thomas’ debut novel lays out “What it is.” in chapters of the same name with Aly’s first person narration beginning in August 2019 at the start of Aly’s junior year at Seton alongside flashbacks of “What it was.” where a third person narrator teases out key events that led to the advent and progression of Seton’s infamous winning streak. A prologue from The Seton Story–the paper Aly edits–immediately puts readers on alert as everything that has previously made Seton so great is stripped away with the ominous observation, “If you thought that that made us the lucky ones … You were wrong.” While there is some diversity among the principal cast including Black students Aly, J, and Britt as well as other characters cued as BIPOC based on their surnames, it is clear that Seton is predominantly white and wealthy. This income disparity in particular weighs heavily on Aly who is eager to blend in with the assumed privilege at Seton not wanting anyone to “feel like we’re different.”

Short, fast-paced chapters and prose laden with foreshadow like Parker’s description of Britt as a bomb–“And maybe you meet her and survive it and it’s a miracle that you’ll talk about forever with anyone who’ll listen. Maybe that’s what happens, and it feels like magic. Or maybe the bomb goes off and she destroys you.”–add intensity to this story as both Aly and readers begin to unpack what exactly has made Seton’s varsity team so unbeatable.

True to its title, Seton Girls, keeps the focus squarely on the school’s female student body even as it unpacks the misogyny and sexism that has long been the source of many of Seton’s storied traditions. Aly’s narration is filled with naked longing to be part of Britt’s magical group of girlsfriends, “Britt’s term, so it never, ever gets confused with the less important role of being a girlfriend,” alongside Britt, Michelle and their other friends Bianca Patel and Kelly Donahue. Aly is not alone in her fascination with “the four of them together like this weightless, perfect, intoxicating aura everywhere they go” attracting both objectifying male gazes and envious female ones adding homoerotic subtext to many of Aly’s interactions with Britt and her friends since “those girls are distracting in the most addictive way.”

Subtle characterization illustrates the income disparity between Aly and her classmates in small details like Aly’s obsession with Glad Plugins which “For a while we had to use them, when they were paving the road near our house and it made everything inside smell like tar. That’s over now, but I’m still obsessed.” These sharp observations are often undercut early in the story with Aly’s gushing sentimentality for all things Seton where “Kyle can be drunk ranting on my left and Gina-Melissa can be reciting perfection on my right, and it’s not weird, or ironic, or some wild juxtaposition. It just is. We all just belong here. And it just works.” The impact of the novel’s opening with Aly’s article in The Seton Story about Parker promising to share the truth about Seton is similarly diluted as Aly spends most of the novel debating how best to support Britt before finally delivering on the story we see on page one.

Details surrounding the varsity football team’s success are often mired in specific details of football gameplay including the playoff model change observed by Cooper Adams years ago where the team doesn’t “make it to States anymore just because we have a better regular season record than everyone else. We just need to be good enough to make it to the playoffs.” which might be pull readers out of the otherwise suspenseful backstory. The ultimate payoff for the plot, especially Britt’s character arc, comes in a final act shift that casts the entire story in a different light while highlighting the power of both agency and female solidarity.

Seton Girls is a timely novel adding to the conversation surrounding the #MeToo movement alongside questions of both privilege–especially white male privilege–and consent. As Britt aptly tells Aly “If the door is open but you know you can’t get up and walk out of it that is force. That’s, like, the greatest kind of power that exists. That is corporation-level power. And it’s that kind of power–not the muscles or the dumb boy-tanks they wear–that guys like Parker will tell you isn’t real. And swear they’re not that type. But it’s the realest thing in the world.”

Possible Pairings: One Great Lie by Deb Caletti, You Too?: 25 Voices Share Their #MeToo Stories edited by Janet Gurtler, Lawless Spaces by Corey Ann Haydu, Required Reading for the Disenfranchised Freshman by Kristen R. Lee, Tigers, Not Daughters by Samantha Mabry, You Truly Assumed by Laila Sabreen, A Room Away From the Wolves by Nova Ren Suma

All These Bodies: A Review

A series of strange murders is leaving a grisly trail across the Midwest in the summer of 1958.

The bodies are found in their cars, their homes, their beds. All of them are drained of blood. But the scenes are clean. No blood anywhere.

On September 19 the Carlson family is slaughtered in their secluded farmhouse in Black Deer Falls, Minnesota and the police might finally have a lead when Marie Catherine Hale is found at the scene.

Covered in blood, mistaken for a survivor, it soon becomes clear that Marie is something else when police realize the blood is not hers.

Michael Jensen has been following coverage of the murders all summer, eager to test his mettle as an aspiring journalist and pave the way out of his small town. When his father, the local sheriff, arrests Marie, Michael knows it’s an opportunity he likely won’t see again.

Talking to Marie, assisting the police, having firsthand access to the case files gives Michael a close-up view of the investigation and the girl at its center. Marie doesn’t look like a killer, but she’s confessing to Michael over a series of interviews. She says there’s more to the killings than anyone can imagine but as her story unfolds Michael is the one who will have to decide if the truth is the same as what people will believe in All These Bodies (2021) by Kendare Blake.

Find it on Bookshop.

All These Bodies was a 2021 Bram Stoker Award Nominee for Best Young Adult Novel. The story is narrated by Michael and all characters are assumed white.

Blake expertly unspools Michael’s naked ambition to become a journalist with his increasingly thorny ethical dilemma when it comes to using Marie’s story for his own gain. The narrative focuses on Marie and whether being complicit is the same as being an accomplice while slowly teasing out what may have happened to the Carlsons and all the other victims.

Centering Marie while having the story related by Michael explores questions of the male gaze and agency as the story builds to its dramatic finish. Marie’s journey in the media from victim to villain is nuanced and contrasts well with Michael’s own conflicting feelings on whether Marie can be the violent criminal authorities seem to think she is while also being his friend.

Michael’s pragmatic narration only increases the tension as Marie shares her confession to her role in the murders and hints at something even more sinister at play while leaving space for readers to interpret events for themselves.

All These Bodies is an atmospheric story at the intersection of true crime and horror; one that will stay with you in all of the best ways.

Possible Pairings: No Saints in Kansas by Amy Brashear, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, Breaker by Kat Ellis, I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga, Two Can Keep a Secret by Karen M. McManus, Broken Things by Lauren Oliver, Sadie by Courtney Summers, The Darkest Corners by Kara Thomas, The Waking Dark by Robin Wasserman

Want to know more? Check out my interview with Kendare.

Belladonna: A Chick Lit Wednesday Review

“Do not change the parts of yourself that you like to make others comfortable. Do not try to mold yourself to fit the standards someone else has set for us.”

Signa Farrow has spent her entire life moving from house to house as each of her numerous guardians meets an untimely end. With caretakers increasingly more interested in her wealth than her happiness, Signa’s loneliness is palpable. She craves the day she will come into her inheritance and can set up her own household filled with laughter and company–never solitude and especially not Death. The one constant in Signa’s life aside from her precarious living arrangements has been the ability to see and, regrettably, interact with Death himself–a shadowy figure of a man who is as mystified by their connection as Signa.

At the age of nineteen, there is only one year left until Signa enters society. One she needs to use well if she hopes to banish the dismal reputation her numerous deceased guardians have built for her. After years of begging–and even demanding–that Death leave her alone, Signa is more suspicious than grateful when he promises to improve her current situation. Nonetheless, she is cautiously excited to find she has some living relatives in the Hawthorne family.

Thorn Grove is a stately manor with far more luxury than Signa is used to, but it is also a house in crisis with patriarch Elijah Hawthorne lost in grief and intent on running the family business–and reputation–into the ground while eldest son Percy watches helplessly. With mourning not yet over for Elijah’s beloved wife, it seems his daughter Blythe is suffering from the same mysterious illness. With no obvious cure and her condition worsening, Death warns that it won’t be much longer before he has to claim the ailing girl as one of his own.

Experiencing stability and family for the first time is a heady mixture for Signa, reminding her of how much Thorn Grove still has to lose. Signa knows that society would frown upon a young woman experimenting with folk remedies and digging into the Hawthorne’s secrets. But she also knows that she will do anything to keep Blythe and Thorn Grove safe–even if it means risking her reputation by working with Death to search for answers in Belladonna (2022) by Adalyn Grace.

Find it on Bookshop.

Belladonna is the first book in a projected duology that will continue with Foxglove. Signa and most main characters are cued as white with more varied skin tones among the supporting cast including one of Signa’s childhood friends, Charlotte, who is described as having brown skin.

Belladonna is a gothic mystery with just the right amount of magic in the form of death personified and Signa’s own strange powers that allow her not just to speak with Death but take on some of his abilities including a resistance to poison. Sumptuous descriptions of Signa’s new surroundings set the mood as Signa familiarizes herself with Thorn Grove and its occupants while highlighting the privation of her previous homes.

Armed with nothing but an old etiquette book and her wits, Signa thinks she is prepared for what society will expect of her as a young woman. But the longer she spends at Thorn Grove and the more she embraces her own powers, the clearer it is that the societal standards Signa has clung to are skewed against her and may not be worth striving for after all. Signa’s inheritance adds another layer to this conversation as she begins to understand her privilege and realizes other women are not so fortunate when it comes to future marriages and life choices.

Haunted by spirits all her life, Signa’s innate need to investigate the happenings at Thorn Grove only increases as she is haunted by–and begins to communicate with–the ghosts of the stately manor. This novel is filled with a well-rounded cast of both the living and dead who add dimension to this rich story as the complexities of relationships among the Hawthorne family and its staff begin to unfold. At the center of this is Signa’s complicated dynamic with Death who starts the story as her greatest frustration only to become a foil, a confidante, and perhaps much more. The tension between these two characters moves the story along as much as the mystery with its own twists and surprises.

Belladonna is a thoughtful story where Signa spends as much time investigating her own wants and needs as a young woman entering society as she does trying to uncover Thorn Grove’s secrets. Belladonna capitalizes on a well-developed magic system and atmospheric prose to deliver both a satisfying mystery and romance.

Possible Pairings: Blood and Moonlight by Erin Beaty, The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi, Once Upon a Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber, Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers, Ferryman by Claire McFall, A Forgery of Roses by Jessica S. Olson, Gallant by V. E. Schwab

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

Small Favors: A Chick Lit Wednesday Review

Amity Falls is isolated. Bordered on one side by the Blackspire Mountain range and dense forest on the other, visitors are rare but dangers from the encroaching forest are not. The earliest townsfolk fought to claim the land from literal monsters–the kind that are still, to this day, whispered about after dark. Everyone knows that safety comes from simple things like following the rules of the community and avoiding the forest except for annual supply runs.

Until the last supply run fails.

With no survivors and no provisions, everyone in Amity Falls is facing a long winter.

Even with this coming scarcity, Ellerie Downing’s life remains safe and predictable. Perhaps too predictable as she chafes under the restrictions placed on her as a girl while her feckless brother is expected to take on responsibilities he seems incapable of managing for both the family and the bees that are their livelihood.

As the seasons change, strange things come to the town. Animals born with horrific defects. Inexplicable occurrences in the fields. Visitors claiming to be trappers including a handsome stranger Ellerie can tell is keeping at least one secret.

When the winter proves harder than usual, monstrous creatures come out of the shadows offering to grant wishes–to provide help–so long as they receive small favors in return. The requests seem harmless at first. Until it becomes clear that denying them will have dire consequences in Small Favors (2021) by Erin A. Craig.

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Small Favors combines supernatural and horror elements in this page turner narrated by Ellerie. Most principle characters are assumed white. The growing tensions among the insulated community of Amity Falls contrast well with the bees kept by Ellerie’s family with beekeeping playing a major role in the story.

Within the confines of Amity Falls, Ellerie is frustrated by the expectations she faces as a young woman to be passive and docile while her twin brother is largely able to do as he likes–often with unfavorable results for Ellerie and the rest of her family and minimal repercussions for himself.  As the story progresses and Ellerie sees more and more cracks in the tenets of the community, she begins to push back against the strict confines of her role in Amity Falls while also discovering her own agency leading to a well-managed treatment of feminist themes and provocative commentary on the importance  to balance individual needs with the greater good.

Craig expertly builds suspense and a growing sense of urgency as Faustian bargains slowly erode everything Ellerie has taken for granted about her home and her family. Small Favors combines the eerie seclusion of The Village, the escalating ferocity of Needful Things, and a unique magic system to create a distinctly unsettling atmosphere where nothing is as it seems. Small Favors is a quiet blend of horror and fantasy sure to keep you up all night reading.

Possible Pairings: Grace and Fury by Tracy Banghart, Five Midnights by Ana Davila Cardinal, The Luminaries by Susan Dennard, The Bone Houses by Emily Lloyd-Jones, Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand, The Grace Year by Kim Liggett, Ferryman by Claire McFall, The Poison Season by Mara Rutherford, Red Wolf by Rachel Vincent, Needful Things, The Village