The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett is the first of the Shadow of Leviathan series which so far also includes A Drop of Corruption, and will continue. It was pitched to me by a friend who loved the Holmes and Watson vibes of the mystery in a secondary fantasy setting. 

This book follows Din, a magically enhanced assistant to a famed detective, Ana Dolabra. Din can engrave memories into himself perfectly, ideal to walk through a murder scene such as the one at the opening, where a tree has sprouted out of a very important official, killing him. Ana is as eccentric as the Holmes she's compared to, often wearing a blindfold and staying home as often as she can, though when the mystery widens, she consents to travel. Of course, this world is dealing with monsters who appear from the sea (Godzilla meets Eldritch) and that gets in the way of the murder investigation.

This book has a fascinating fantasy world, and you really need to be a fantasy reader to enjoy that element. I see how this series is going to expand easily to more stories in this world. The characters of Din and Ana were both complex and interesting, and people you could root for. I'll probably read book two.

On the downside, the struggle with a murder via magic is that every element of the magic system has to get explained, otherwise the reader who wants to solve the mystery can't do so, or is only fed enough information to solve the mystery, so it becomes too obvious. I think this book erred on the side of the first issue, with a lot more information than we might have needed. As a fantasy lover, I didn't mind so much, but I know a mystery reader who was overwhelmed.


This book is for you if you love understanding magic systems, love a mystery but don't need to solve it before the characters in order to enjoy it, and are looking for a Holmes-Watson type dynamic. It's not for you if you prefer traditional mysteries where you expect to solve it before the characters, if you don't get into fantasy world building or magic systems, or if you prefer a cozier/more relatable detective instead of a genius. 

Have you read The Tainted Cup? How did you feel about the balance of magic and mystery? What did you think of the title by the end? Let's discuss in the comments!

Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs was on all sorts of best fantasy lists for 2023. I picked it up in the hopes it might be a good comp for my book, although it ended up not being what I expected at all. 

As the title suggests, the book is about two sisters, Esther and Joanna. They were raised among a collection of magical books, which can enact spells if read by Joanna, but not Esther. Joanna inherited the job of protecting the books, while Esther became a nomad and starts the book in working in Antarctica. However, Esther begins to notice strange events around the research site, which she suspects is magic. Someone else must have magical books, and it seems they want the sisters' collection as well. And will do anything to get it.

This book had interesting settings, such as Antarctica, and even the more mundane locales had a clear sense of place and atmosphere. I liked the tension in the sisters' relationship, which felt organic.

Unfortunately, this book really struggled to keep my attention. I suspect it was a pacing issue; it felt like everything too far too long to get going.


Overall, this book is for you if you want a sister-focused fantasy, a sapphic subplot, or a book-based magic system. It may not be for you if you prefer faster paced stories, more epic-scale fantasy, or if you're not in the headspace to read a book where the characters' father recently died.

Have you read Ink Blood Sister Scribe? What did you think? Let's discuss in the comments!

The Kiss Countdown by Etta Easton is a romcom arguably in the STEM romance subgenre. I picked it up as a palate cleanser after some fantasies I read felt like they were all hitting the same note. Since its main trope is fake dating, a trope I'm trying to use, it doubled as research. 

Amerie is a struggling event planner, recently single and about to be homeless. When she runs into her ex with his impressive new girlfriend, she basically grabs the nearest stranger and pretends he'd her new beaux. Somehow that worked out to be Vincent, an astronaut. He's open to the rouse if its a two way street, his overbearing family wants him to be in a relationship before he leaves on a mission to orbit. In exchange, Amerie can live in his house rent-free, even while he's in space, and put that money toward her business instead. But like any good fake dating scenario, the lines begin to blur.

This book was exactly as advertised, a romcom, a character who worked in STEM, The romance was fairly sweet, not too chaste and not too erotic. It was the palate cleanser I was looking for. 

On the downside, there was a touch of the miscommunication trope, after all there was no reason the characters couldn't actually date. I had also hoped for both characters to work in STEM, but that's not really a strike against the book, that's more of me not paying attention as I shopped.


This book is for you if you're looking for a nice popcorn romcom, if you want a love interest in science, or if you're a lover of the fake dating trope. This book is not for you if you're looking for high spice romance, a firmly STEM romance, or if the miscommunication trope is a no-go for you. 

Have you read The Kiss Countdown? What about Easton's other book, The Love Simulation? Let's discuss in the comments!

The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen was recommended to me by a writing friend. It's a little known romantasy with companion books set in the same world: The Undermining of Twyla and Frank and The Undercutting of Rosie and Adam. While there aren't awards pouring in (a crime!) the book is utterly charming. 

Hart works as pretty much a zombie hunter/guard of the zombie zone, whose job is to prevent the zombies from getting to the general public. Mercy runs her father's mortuary, although isn't given the credit and a competitor is trying to shut them out of the market. Hart often brings zombie bodies to Mercy, but the two had a miscommunication early and haven't gotten along since. When Hart writes and anonymous letter to a friend, the magic post brings it to Mercy, and they begin an anonymous pen pal exchange. But when Hart's new apprentice gets involved and more zombies than ever are running amok, Hart and Mercy can't help but put aside their issues and admit there might be more going on than they thought. 

I liked Hart and Mercy as stand alone characters, each going through more than just falling in love. The world was interesting but not so intricate or busy that the romantic vibe was lost. It was cozy as in not world-ending in scope but had meat to the bones of the plot. The romance felt earned and deep.

On the downside, the bad blood between then began as a misunderstanding, which is one of my least favorite tropes to set up dislike or tension. But maybe I'm just a talker.


This book is for you if you enjoyed the secret-identity pen pal romance of Divine Rivals, the cozier world building of The Phoenix Keeper, and if you enjoy zombies minus the gore. This book is not for you if you're looking for a horror-genre zombie book, if you're looking for epic fantasy, or if you want a hard magic system.

I'm probably going to read the other two books in this world. Have you read them all? Who's your favorite couple of the three? Let's discuss in the comments.

Anyone close to my age read the Hunger Games trilogy when it came out in the early 20-teens. I personally picked up the original novel in the clearance section of Walmart my freshman year of college, but all three books were available by then. It was a huge phenomenon, especially when the movies came out. I even saw the original in theaters at midnight. When Suzanne Collins released two more Hunger Games books, A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and Sunrise on the Reaping, I worried. Were these money grabs? Was she trying to make people like President Snow by making him a main character? Would this undermine the Hunger Games like other once-beloved series were undermined years later? I decided to give them a try.

A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes follows President Snow in his youth, when he was a mentor in the tenth Hunger Games. It discusses what the war was like, how the games began and evolved, and life in the Capitol. Snow became entangled with his mentee from District 12, Lucy Gray, and the book follows the games themselves and the aftermath. 
Sunrise on the Reaping follows Haymitch in the 50th Hunger Games, the second Quarter Quell, where twice as many kids were in the games. It fleshed out Haymitch as a character and showed how he got involved with the people who, in the 75th Hunger Games, helped Katniss and Peeta rebel from within the arena.

Both books rewarded Hunger Games fans with call-backs to the original series that felt organic and not like fan service. The world building fleshed out and added to the world we already knew in a way that felt logical in its progression. While in Sunrise especially you know who wins the games, Collins managed to find ways to surprise me and maintain tension throughout the book anyway. This is similar to the Hunger Games trilogy, where you knew the POV character will win, but kept turning pages to see how.

On the downside, I didn't like being in Snow's POV so Ballad was harder for me to invest in. I know not every protagonist needs to be likable, but knowing who he became later made it hard to empathize with him. 

These books are for you if you enjoyed the original Hunger Games trilogy (although that's not required to understand the plots), if you are in the mood for rebelling against dystopian governments, or if you prefer your romance sub-plots with a bit of tragedy. These books are not for you if you didn't enjoy Collins's writing style in the original trilogy, if you are not in the headspace to read about tyrannical governments, or if you are looking for a happy ending or light tone.


Have you read all of the Hunger Games books? Are you looking forward to the Sunrise on the Reaping movie? Let's discuss in the comments!

Way back in 2021, I read The Lady Astronaut Series by Mary Robinette Kowal, and finally the latest installment arrived this year. As a refresher, the series follows Elma York, a Jewish woman in the 1950s who works for NASA, as does her engineer husband, when a meteor hits earth and changes the trajectory of NASA forever.

In The Martian Contingency, years after the events of The Fated Sky, Elma is helping to build the first long term colony on Mars with her husband and other male and female scientists. Signs in the habitat from the first set of builders suggest something unusual occurred. but Elma is iced out and not told what happened. Due to several strange events, which everyone worries is sabotage, the men and women are separated during habitat expansion. Then, an explosion makes Elma realize what actually matters to her most.

Much like the other books in the series, the world building remains top notch. Elma is an empathetic character who is easy to like and root for, and the sexism she continues to face is, of course, all too real. This book had me on edge worried over everyone.

My one complaint about what might be the end of this series is that the end of the book felt a bit anticlimactic. Everything wrapped up quickly, in a way that wasn't exciting or new, just over. If this was a publisher's choice to limit word count, please know I would have kept reading! Let women write doorstoppers!

This book is for you if you read and enjoyed the other Lady Astronaut books and wanted more of Elma's story, if you enjoyed the survival and science of The Martian by Andy Weir, and if you love books about women in STEM. This book is not for you if you're looking for a STEM romance (Elma is happily married and the drama in here is not about their romance waning), if you were more invested in getting more story about the moon (continuing from The Relentless Moon), or if you're looking for non-fiction about women at NASA. 


Did you read The Martian Contingency? What did you think? And which pie would be hardest to make in space? Let's discuss in the comments!

Powerless by Lauren Roberts is the first in a YA romantasy trilogy. I've seen it everywhere. It was a nominee for best YA fantasy on Goodreads in 2023 and a winner of Barnes and Noble Book Award for YA in 2024. I'm not much for YA anymore, but I do love romantasy, and since I'm writing one I wanted to know what made this book so popular. 

Powerless follows Paedyn, an orphaned teen who must pretend to have special powers (she poses as a Psychic) because in her kingdom, anyone without powers is killed or banished to the desert to die. There's also an elite competition every so often where powerful teens fight (sometimes to the death) for glory. After Paedyn saves the prince in disguise, she's chosen for the competition. But as the deadly trials progress, so do her feelings for the prince.... or really the princes if we're being honest.

I can easily see the pitch for this book. Hunger Games turned fantasy meets Reign. I get why it sold as a traditionally published book, it seems like it has everything you need for success. And unfortunately, that's all my praise paragraph can say.

On the downside, the male leads were so blah that I can remember nothing about them, not even their names. The plot was predictable, including the "twist" which I thought until that point was an assumed fact, so the real twist was that none of the characters had put two and two together. In fact at one point I came up with a theory about what could happen as a real twist, but when the more obvious thing happened instead, I was so disappointed. The world was frustratingly vague, from the magic system to the culture to what the tech level was supposed to be. It was uncanny reading a book that should have worked and should have been good and it just kept missing the mark. I also struggled with what must have been an editorial choice: action beats kept being in the same paragraph as dialog but the speaker and the actor were two different characters. It made it seem like the wrong person was speaking, which was SO distracting.

This book may be for you if you're a YA lover, have not heavily read romantasy and therefore might be more surprised by the plot, and if you're a fan of competition-set stories. It's not for you if you've read a lot of romantasy before, if you're looking a memorable male lead, or if you're looking for unique world building.


Overall, not a series I'll continue. But hey, just because it wasn't for me, doesn't mean it doesn't have an audience. It's still popular! So, are you a Powerless lover? Make your case in the comments!

Since I met author Stephen Graham Jones recently, I figured i should review one of his latest works, Buffalo Hunter Hunter, a vampire horror novel. Since I did the intro to this author in my last post, I'll get straight to the book. 

Buffalo Hunter Hunter has a couple structures going on: a frame story about a modern college professor who receives her ancestor's diary from 1912, the contents of that diary, and the story within that diary of a Blackfeet man named Good Stab, which took place 1870-1912. If you're a writer, this book is a great study in nested structures. The heart of the tale is Good Stab's experience becoming a vampire and navigating the need to feed, the power that comes with his new state of being, and the consequences of his choices.

This book was a really unique take on vampirism that I've never seen before. The downsides of being a vampire are magnified by the place, time, and Good Stab himself. If you're familiar with American history, especially the horrors of the expansion into the West in the mid-1800s, the story becomes all the richer. The resolution was also unique and though unexpected also felt almost inevitable.

For me the main downside was it started slow and took a while to build. It paid off over time, but I needed the pace to be a smidge faster. There were also very few women, despite the larger frame story featuring a woman's POV. I don't think this book passed the Bechdel test.

This book is for you if you love vampires, horror, or are craving a tale of revenge. This book is not for you if you have a low gore tolerance, dislike vampires, or are looking for feminist horror. This is a great study for writers in unique structure, differentiating POVs, and writing historical perspectives that stay true to the characters (the white guy is openly racist in 1912, what a shock) without using the language in a way that makes modern readers wonder if the author agrees.


Have you read Buffalo Hunter Hunter? What about Jones's other work? Let's discuss in the comments!

The Belladonna trilogy by Adalyn Grace includes Belladonna (2022), Foxglove (2023), and Wisteria (2024). There is a forthcoming holiday novella titled Holly due in 2025. The series is upper YA (dare I suggest new adult) secondary world romantasy. The technology era is something like early Victorian maybe, it's hard to pinpoint, but it's pre-electricity and pre-car, but felt post industrial revolution. 

In this series, Signa is an orphaned heiress, who has a strange ability. She can elude death, and see him, but only when she's on the brink of it herself. She can also see ghosts. She's been unlucky with caregivers, who often died, but at nineteen, she's sent to live with more distant relatives, the Hawthorns. The daughter around Signa's age, Blythe, is struggling with a mysterious illness. The son is trying to wrangle the family gentleman's club from their father, their father excessively parties to numb the recent loss of his wife. Signa is determined to solve Blythe's illness with the help of her nemesis (Death) and the family's stable manager. And let's not forget this is a romantasy!

In subsequent books we see other eternal figures like Fate, who becomes a major player in Foxglove and Wisteria, the latter of which is from a different POV than Signa (but I won't spoil who). There is another romance in that book, while Belladonna and Foxglove focus on Signa's romance. 

I adored Signa's romance. Her chemistry with both Death and the stable manager were incredibly written. I tend to be skeptical of enemies to lovers recently, but this one was different and very well done. I was rabid for book 2 by the end of book 1. And the covers and art! To die for. Major shout out to my bestie, a librarian by trade, who sent me this book for Christmas. She nailed it.

You'll enjoy this series if you enjoy enemies to lovers, Death as a character, gothic mysteries, and low-to-medium spice. This series is not for you if you're looking for high spice, if you don't enjoy Death as a character, and if you want to focus more on world building and magic systems in your fantasy.

I have several non-fiction books I've used as resources lately. Enjoy these mini reviews!

Beginnings, Middles, & Ends by Nancy Kress
This book covers exactly what the title indicates, including offering help if any of those three acts are a problem for you. It emphasizes why each is important, what it must do, and how to transition to the next part. I felt like this book was a bit below my level of writing understanding, because I didn't highlight a single thing in it. However, for newer writers, some of the advice offered may be new to you so for the price ($12.99 for a paperback) it might be worth it.

Mastering Suspense Structure & Plot by Jane K. Cleland
This book won the Agatha Award for best non-fiction, so I bought it from the little indie bookstore that set up at a conference recently. The book is split in two halves: planning and writing. If you're not a plotter, and don't plan to try it, then half the book may not be for you. While what it discussed was interesting, I still didn't highlight anything, which to me is telling. However, if you're new to plotting and want to try out a technique for it, this book may be of great use. It was a little more expensive (the paperback was $18.99) but at least I supported an indie bookstore.

The Negative Trait Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi
I've talked about the various thesauruses by this pair of writers before, and they never disappoint. This thesaurus helps identify negative traits to give characters, because a perfect character is a boring one, and associates them with causes, behaviors, thoughts, and examples. Some of the causes include emotional wounds, which really helps make a character cohesive. I also liked that it listed both positive and negative aspects of these traits so you can write a character where these flaws are sometimes a strength. It's safe to say I recommend it.

Botanical Curses and Poisons: The Shadow Lives of Plants by Fez Inkwright
I bought this one at an indie book stand at a Christmas market. The book is gorgeous and the topic is very in line with a new writing project I have. There's a section up front for history and then it's an encyclopedia of plants that are poisonous, associated with magic, or both. Each entry explains why the plant was included as well as interesting facts, and often an image. I left flags all over this book to come back to. If you're writing about these types of plants or are just curious, I highly recommend it. For the hardcover I paid $16.99, and supported and indie bookstore, so it was a win all around.


Have you read any of these books? Which did you find most helpful? Let's discuss in the comments!