Mystery Book Review - Our Infinite Fates by Lara Steven

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆

Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Evelyn can remember all her past lives. She can also remember that in every single one, she's been killed before her eighteenth birthday by Arden, a supernatural being whose soul is tethered to hers. And it doesn't matter whether she kills them first - they both die.

The problem is that she's quite fond of the life she's in now, and more importantly, her sister needs her to stay alive for bone marrow transplants. So now Evelyn has to: a. find the centuries-old enemy who hunts her through each life and break their curse for good, b. figure out exactly why she's being hunted in the first place, and c. try quite hard not to fall in love with them. Again."

Mystery Book Review - A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆☆

Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆☆

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Effy Sayre has always believed in fairy tales. Haunted by visions of the Fairy King since childhood, she's had no choice. Her tattered copy of Angharad - Emrys Myrddin's epic about a mortal girl who falls in love with the Fairy King, then destroys him - is the only thing keeping her afloat. So when Myrddin's family announces a contest to redesign the late author's estate, Effy feels certain it's her destiny.

But musty, decrepit Hiraeth Manor is an impossible task, and its residents are far from welcoming. Including Preston Heloury, a stodgy young literature scholar determined to expose Myrddin as a fraud. As the two rivals piece together clues about Myrddin's legacy, dark forces, both mortal and magical, conspire against them - and the truth may bring them both to ruin."

Lydia Cooper is a Lie - Meaghan McIsaac

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆

Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"For as long as Lydia can remember, it's been her and her dad against the world. But while she loves him, her dad is so overprotective. Well-versed in the dangers of the internet from his job in cybersecurity, he refuses to let Lydia be online without heavy parental controls, and social media is out of the question.

One day, when all Lydia's friends are invited to a movie night at her crush's house - except her because she's not in the group chat - Lydia gets fed up with her dad's rules and makes a social media account. Then an armed intruder shows up at her home. Clearly, there's more to her family's past than she knows.

On the run and separated from her dad, Lydia will need to uncover the secrets her dad has been keeping if she wants to reunite with him. But how can Lydia know who to trust along the way when she doesn't even know who she is?"

Mystery Book Review - The Light We Lost by Kyla Stone

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆

Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆

Overall: ⭐⭐

From the cover:

"When all lights fail, will you survive? A catastrophic solar flare strikes Earth, plunging half the planet into darkness. Amid the chaos, thirteen-year-old Shiloh awakens to a nightmare: a dead body beside her, her brother missing, and no recollection of what happened.

As she desperately searches for her brother, a killer is hot on her trail, determined to silence the only witness to the brutal crime.

Undersheriff Jackson Cross races against time to catch the killer and save an innocent girl. But the more he uncovers, the deeper he is drawn into a dangerous darkness that threatens to consume him.

With law and order crumbling around him, Jackson's only hope may lie with Eli Pope, a ruthless ex-convict just released from prison. But Eli has a score to settle - he's hellbent on vengeance against the very sheriff who put him behind bars.

With the world on the brink of destruction, the stakes have never been higher. As the killer closes in on Shiloh and her missing brother, they must navigate the devastation to stay alive."

Greenwild - Pari Thomson

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆☆☆ 

Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆☆

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Eleven-year-old Daisy Thistledown is on the run. Her mother has been keeping big, glittering secrets, and now she has vanished. Daisy knows it's up to her to find Ma - but someone is hunting her across London. Someone determined to stop her from discovering the truth.

So when Daisy flees to safety through a mysterious hidden doorway, she can barely believe her eyes - she has stepped out of the city and into another world.

This is the Greenwild. Bursting with magic and full of amazing natural wonders, it seems too astonishing to be true. But not only is this land of green magic real, it holds the key to finding Daisy's mother. 

And someone wants to destroy it.

Daisy must band together with a botanical genius, a boy who can talk with animals, and a spunky cat to uncover the truth about who she really is. Only then can she channel the power that will change her whole world...and save the Greenwild itself."

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First mystery book of 2026! God, I loved it. I will say that it clocks in at 364 pages and I think that could have been pared down a touch, but for the most part I found the entire thing very compelling and hard to put down, and I whizzed through it. The world of the Greenwild felt so vivid, I could see everything I was reading and wish there was a place like it that I could visit in real life. I thought the characters were well-developed, and the way they made an already lively world feel even more alive was glorious. And I thought the way they incorporated illustrations periodically throughout the book was a very nice touch. All around a delight.

Specifically, while I think there were certain characters that it was obvious from the beginning were bad news (sorry for maybe spoilers, but Craven? Come on, dude's name is CRAVEN, no one gives that name to a good guy, and it's SO clear immediately that he sucks), I think the mystery Thomson wove was a good one, and I thought there were some awesome reveals (some that I guessed and some that I didn't, and some that made me cry!). I thought the book took on a lot of complex stuff in a really nuanced way - not the whole climate change thing, it took that on well in a very not nuanced way, which I'm more than fine with, but OTHER things - and I feel like a lot of kids reading this would be able to see themselves in various characters. 

I was lowkey bummed when I realized before reading that this was part of a series, just because I have SO many things I want to read that every time I discover a new series, I'm like cool, even MORE! It's daunting. But in this case, I think it was very earned, and I've got a hold on the second book at the library. Very excited to find out what happens next!

Truly Devious Books 1-3 - Maureen Johnson

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆☆☆ 

Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover of Truly Devious:

"Ellingham Academy is a famous private school in Vermont for the brightest thinkers, inventors, and artists. It was founded by Albert Ellingham, an early twentieth century tycoon, who wanted to make a wonderful place full of riddles, twisting pathways, and gardens. "A place," he said, "where learning is a game."

Shortly after the school opened, his wife and daughter were kidnapped. The only real clue was a mocking riddle listing methods of murder, signed with the frightening pseudonym "Truly, Devious." It became one of the great unsolved crimes of American history.

True-crime aficionado Stevie Bell is set to begin her first year at Ellingham Academy, and she has an ambitious plan: She will solve this cold case. That is, she will solve the case when she gets a grip on her demanding new school life and her housemates: the inventor, the novelist, the actor, the artist, and the jokester.

But something strange is happening. Truly Devious makes a surprise return, and death revisits Ellingham Academy. The past has crawled out of its grave. Someone has gotten away with murder."

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Okay, bit weird here, but we just read the first three books in this series for our book club, and since this book wrapped part of the through-line from the first two books I figured it was a good time to do a review. This series has been a unique experience for me in a way - I feel like usually with a series like this, there's an encapsulated story with a resolution for each book with a larger storyline connecting them. In this case, however, the synopsis for the first book could really, maybe with minor tweaks, be the synopsis for the first three as a whole. There was ZERO resolution in the first book, and in fact I felt like I ended the first book with more questions than answers.

That said, I don't intend that as a critique! In fact, I think the biggest strength of this series so far has been the suspense. There was almost no point at which I felt like I had a handle on what was going on. I trusted no one, I second-guessed every single thing that happened, and I HAD to know what happened next. Things got so obfuscated that I even found myself suspicious of the road sign warning about moose! Did the kidnappers escape on a moose? Who can say?!

It's truly so hard to talk about mystery books without giving things away, so I don't even know what to talk about here. I found the characters flawed and endearing (most of them), I thought Ellingham sounded like such a weird, cool place, murders and kidnappings aside, and I loved the way things swapped back and forth between present day and past. If you asked me which book was the best, I'd say they were all good but personally I thought the third was the best so far, possibly partially because I actually got some answers at last. I found the first compelling, the second was maybe the most heart-wrenching, and the third was thrilling.

We'll be working our way through the rest of the series in our book club, and I'm interested to see what transpires in book four. Perhaps you'll see another three-book review in the future!

Revelle - Lyssa Mia Smith

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆☆☆ 

Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆☆

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Luxe Revelle, star of her family's fantastical show, knows the splendor is just an illusion. With Prohibition threatening their livelihood, her family struggles to make a living, watering down champagne and patching holes in their sequined costumes. So when the son of Charmant's wealthiest family makes Luxe an offer - all the liquor the Revelles need to stay in business, in exchange for posing as his girl and helping him become mayor - she can't refuse.

The moment Jamison Port sets foot in Charmant, he can't shake the feeling of familiarity. An orphan with as few memories as gemstones, he's desperate to learn what happened to his parents. But as he delves into the island's secrets, he risks angering the wrong person and discovering a truth that just might break his heart.

When Luxe and Jamison accidentally meet, the sparks that fly are more than her magical enchantments. But keeping secrets from powerful people is a dangerous game...one that could destroy them both."

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I read a lot of books, and I'd say I enjoy the majority of them, but it's been a bit since I read a book that had me as riveted as this one. The initial draw was already there - a historical fantasy set during Prohibition on a mysterious, magical island off the coast of New York, I'll read that book any day. And then I started reading and it was even better than I had expected. The world was gorgeous and intriguing, and the pacing was perfect. Just enough mystery to be tantalizing while information was revealed at exactly the right time to keep you wanting to read one more chapter.

Speaking of reveals, MY GOD, there were a few that got big reactions from me, to the point where I had to try and recap the entire book to my husband when I had about three or four chapters left because I was like "what is happening?! How will they get out of it??" I was reeling for probably the last half of the book. I read this at night before bed, and it was so hard to put it down when I had to go to bed.

Beyond the plot hooks and excitement, I think the thing that ultimately made me fall in love with Revelle was the character building. There was a pretty solid cast that was built out, and I found them all so lovely and endearing! I'm not sure I could pick a favorite if I tried. The book started off feeling like it would primarily focus on Luxe and Jamison, and while most of the action obviously centered around them, the way it became almost an ensemble story was really impressive. Villainous villains, starry-eyed love interests, fiercely dedicated family...all so well-crafted.

I always feel like I do such a bad job with these because I talk around the actual content of the book when I should probably be describing specific things that make me feel the way I do, but just like with every other review that I do this, I don't know how to talk about specifics without spoiling things! All I have to say is if you like magic, if you like intriguing historical fiction, if you like cool stories...read this book.

Murder of Crows - K. Ancrum

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆
Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆

Overall: ⭐⭐

From the cover:

"When Tig Torres first moved back to her hometown of Hollow Falls, she solved the infamous Lit Killer case - and cleared her late Aunt Beth's name in the process.

Tig's work on the case brought her to the attention of Hollow Falls's local armchair detective group, the Murder of Crows. The eccentric group is obsessed with their town's dark past - but their interests extend far beyond the Lit Killer.

Members of the group are fixated on a decades-long search for the missing body of Hollow Falls's founder. There are rumors about what's buried with the body that could be life-changing for whoever finds it. With a mission like that underway, it's not long before a member of the Murder of Crows turns up dead.

Soon, Tig and her friends Max and Wyn are tangled up in the search, too. But the stakes are getting higher and the hunt more dangerous. Someone's willing to kill to keep the town's secrets buried, and if Tig's not careful, she'll be the next victim."

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Look, if you already read my mystery read post about this book, you know I wasn't impressed by it at the start. I decided to really give it a fair shake, I had to read the whole thing and see how everything played out. It wasn't worth it.

I would say "bypassing the decision to write a book as a 'sequel' to a podcast" but truthfully, I don't think you can. Do I think technically you can read this book without the podcast context and have it stand alone? Yes. In practice, however, there's not a lot of world or character development in the book, and the narrative throughout leaned pretty heavily on the reader having the information from the podcast. It's almost a fan fiction vibe, like this was written exclusively for fans of the Lethal Lit podcast to enjoy.

Let's pass beyond the weird choice to write a book billed as the first in a series that actually requires knowledge from another form of media to really follow, though. Tig and her friends - good characters? Eh. They weren't BAD, I guess, but they all just felt very flat and inconsistent. As noted, it seems like a lot of their development happened in the podcast, but if you're going to write a book set in an existing world, sorry, I think it's still your responsibility to develop that shit yourself. 

Also, for all that Tig was touted as this great detective and the solver of this notorious serial killer case (which, also, so weird they were all super flippant about that), she didn't really seem to solve anything in this book. It was more like she and her friends were like "oh my god, what's happening, we have to figure this out" and then someone else would be like "psst, come over here, I have so much lore to share with you" and they would just straight up spoon feed them answers. The entire book was just Tig tripping from one dumb scenario to another and making arguably the worst decisions possible along the way.

Full spoilers here - even the end was a complete letdown. First of all, continuing the tripping from one scenario to another theme, Tig et al didn't even DO anything to solve what was happening or stop the bad guy from carrying out his evil plot. They thought it was someone else and yelled at that character on the phone, and then that character TOLD them who it really was and they ran headlong into danger with no plan and basically just submitted themselves to that person. Then that person got THEMSELVES killed while Tig and the gang just fucking sat there. But hey, in a not at all earned dramatic scene, Tig almost died in a fire, so there's that.

And after that, when Tig & co. miraculously solved the impossible riddles of this decades-old hidden "scavenger hunt" for the Founder's treasure (that were not impossible and also just straight up made no fucking sense and the whole thing was never explained in a satisfactory way to justify the hullaballoo behind it all), the treasure was a. in a place that would have been incredibly easy to find and b. basically nothing. And then it was just like "cool, well, the end. But PS don't forget, this town is crazy dangerous and everyone is violent and scary, dun dun duuuuuun."

Like I said, impossible to say "aside from the questionable premise of writing a book based on a podcast world," but even if I was willing to, I don't think this is a well-told story. And being very honest, I have my doubts that the podcast is any better. I'm just glad the book is relatively short, so it didn't take me long to read.

August Mystery Book

July's mystery book turned out to be excellent (and a dang series, of course, so I had to request the next book from the library), so I've been looking forward to the next one and hoping it's just as good, so I could start a streak. After starting the book, I'm not sure it's going to happen. But I'm getting ahead of myself!

August's mystery read is Murder of Crows by K. Ancrum. Cool, I like K. Ancrum. Seems intriguing.

But then I started reading it, and it's immediately apparent that this is a sequel of some sort. Even though it's listed as "Lethal Lit #1" on the Storygraph. Soooooo what is it a sequel to? 

A PODCAST. 

Yeah, apparently the events in this book take place between the first and second seasons of a scripted podcast called Lethal Lit. And I just...do we think this is a good idea, pals? I guess technically so far (four chapters in) it doesn't seem like it's a requirement to have the context from season one to understand the plot of the book, but events from the podcast are HEAVILY referenced, so it's such a weird vibe NOT having that context. Plus numbering a book as the first in a series when there is already existing story, just not in book form, rubs me the wrong way. I don't know the correct way to denote that this is set in an existing podcast universe, but like...it just all leaves me feeling a little offput. 

I looked it up, and the first episode of the podcast is six episodes, pretty short, so listening to it and then reading the book would be an option. But if I'm being honest, pushing readers to the podcast is part of what I don't like about this whole concept. Listening to the podcast feels like rewarding bad behavior, and if you know me you know one of the things I love to say is "I don't reward bad behavior." So no, I shan't be listening to season one of the podcast. I SHALL give the book a few more chapters and see how I feel about it. And then we can go from there.

Strangeworlds Travel Agency - L.D. Lapinski

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆
Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆
Overall: ⭐⭐

From the cover:

"When twelve-year-old Flick Hudson accidentally ends up in the Strangeworlds Travel Agency, she uncovers a fantastic secret: there are hundreds of other worlds just steps away from ours. All you have to do to visit them is just jump into the right suitcase. Then Flick gets the invitation of a lifetime: join Strangeworlds' magical travel society and explore other worlds.

But, unbeknownst to Flick, the world at the very center of it all, a city called Five Lights, is in danger. Buildings and even streets are mysteriously disappearing. Once Flick realizes what's happening, she must race against time, traveling through uncharted worlds, seeking a way to fix Five Lights before it collapses into nothingness - and takes our world with it."

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Sooooooo the thing about this book. While there's nothing outright objectionable about it, that little synopsis from the cover? That's literally the entire book. As in (sorry, spoilers) the discovery that parts of Five Lights are disappearing and that Flick and the Head Custodian of Strangeworlds need to travel through other worlds to figure out how to fix it IS the end of the book. Respectfully, I don't think that's how synopses on the cover are supposed to work. And honestly, that isn't how it should have played out. 

What I wish had happened: the synopsis takes us maybe a quarter of the way through the book, at which point the adventure really kicks off and we follow Flick through adventure after adventure as she pieces together what's going wrong in Five Lights. Instead, the book starts with Flick discovering Strangeworlds, then has a whole bunch of slow-paced filler with hints at bigger things that never really get answered or added to, and then bam, Five Lights, the end. Boring. And I don't even really fault Lapinski for it, because it's not like the writing itself is bad! No, no. I blame whomever edited this. What is an editor for, if not to be like hey, maybe cut this, rearrange these pieces, pick up the pace a bit...

Or, I don't know, maybe the plan was to spread this book out so it could be spun into a book two (and a 2.5, a 3, and apparently a 3.5). 🤔 I'm not saying this SHOULDN'T have been a series, but the way it was handled makes me scratch my head. There most definitely wasn't enough in this first book to entice me into going back for more, and I'm a completionist, so that says something. Disappointing, because the premise is interesting, but this gets a "you should pass on it" from me.

Castle of the Cursed vs. The Immortal Dark

Remember back in the roaring tenties, aka the 2010s, when two movies would come out and it was like...I mean, these are two versions of the same movie, did one studio pass and then steal the idea while another studio picked up the original? You know what I'm talking about, right? Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman - retellings, but still, same year? No Strings Attached, featuring Natalie Portman and famed rapist-apologist Ashton Kutcher, and Friends with Benefits, featuring dumpster fires Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake? (Per the IMDB trivia, NSA actually tried to title their movie FWB when their original title was rejected and couldn't because...you know, a movie with that exact title and the same plot was coming out a handful of months later...)

Anyhow, I guess this is a thing, they're called Twin Films, movies with similar plots coming out at similar times, which usually would get flagged but every once in a while slips through the cracks. This happens with books too, obviously, and while I always really enjoy reading a book and being like heyyyy I've read something similar to this before, this time I happened to read both books at exactly the same time, and it was a really interesting experience for me so I figured hey, why not blog about it. And here we are.

For starters, personally? These book covers are different variations on the same theme. Similar vibes.

Also, there's an orphaned main character who has lost the last of their known family due to mysterious and probably nefarious circumstances. Both, mostly unwillingly, take a journey to live at a place they find distasteful with an aunt they don't know and don't trust, where both end up allied (tenuously?) with a vampire. Both have lost their native tongue and attempt to relearn it. Both discover their families have complex, mysterious, and dark legacies. Both protagonists are dealing with mental health stuff, with PTSD in the forefront of that stuff.

There's more, but to be honest I thought I had finished this review days ago and foolishly didn't make any notes, so a lot of the more nuanced stuff I'm having trouble remembering and a lot of the less nuanced stuff is spoilers. So I'll just say, interesting experience reading two books that are so similar in overarching plot yet so different in storytelling style. If a person could only read one and asked me for a recommendation, I would say go with Castle of the Cursed if you like things that are mysterious, slightly creepy, but also relatively straightforward when it comes to worldbuilding. Go with The Immortal Dark if you like much more complex, lore-heavy stuff where the book is as much about building the world as it is about advancing the plot. 

What the Woods Took - Courtney Gould

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆☆☆
Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆☆
Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Devin Green wakes in the middle of the night to find two men in her bedroom. No stranger to a fight, she calls to her foster parents for help, but it soon becomes clear this is a planned abduction - one everyone but Devin signed up for. She's shoved in a van and driven deep into the Idaho woods, where she's dropped off with a cohort of equally confused teens. Finally, two camp counselors inform them that they've all been enrolled in an experimental therapy program. If the campers can learn to change their self-destructive ways - and survive a fifty-day hike through the wilderness - they'll come out the other side as better versions of themselves. Or so the counselors say.

Devin is immediately determined to escape. She's also determined to ignore Sheridan, the cruel-mouthed, lavender-haired bully who mocks every group exercise. But there's something strange about these woods - inhuman faces appearing between the trees, visions of people who shouldn't be there flashing in the leaves - and when the campers wake up to find both counselors missing, therapy becomes the least of their problems. Stranded and left to fend for themselves, the teens quickly realize they'll have to trust each other if they want to survive. But what lies in the woods may not be as dangerous as what the campers are hiding from each other - and if the monsters have their way, no one will leave the woods alive."

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I've commented many times on here about how I'm not a horror person, but after reading a spate of horror and horror-adjacent books recently (thanks, I guess, Owlcrate), I might have to revise that to say that I'm interested in horror, but only a very specific sliver of the genre. I don't even know what that sliver is, though. Maybe more thriller than horror? Psychological? Whatever subgenre it is, this falls into it. I could not put it down, ended up finishing it in about a day.

For starters, the whole premise of a bunch of teens sent to an ill-fated (aren't they all) wilderness "therapy" retreat hooked me immediately. I used to know someone who worked for one (🤮) and I knew someone who, uh...benefited isn't the word...from being sent to the same one. As far as I heard, neither of them experienced anything supernatural on their retreats, but even hearing about them back then I found the whole concept off-putting. This really cemented that impression.

I mean, for starters, who sends a group of "troubled" teens out into the wilderness for fifty days with adults as outnumbered as these two ill-equipped counselors were? You have five teens, at least one of which was sent there for her "violent outbursts" (are my sarcastic air quotes doing enough work here? I'm not sure), and only two early-20s counselors? Excuse me while I laugh my ass off. I truly don't think Ethan could have held his own against a group of sixth graders, let alone whole-ass teens, so that was an interesting choice. One "counselor" and one "wilderness guide" is in no universe adequate - and perhaps that's one of the many reasons why these retreats fell so out of favor (although they absolutely still fucking exist, I drive past the HQ for one every day on my way to and from work).

Anyway, yeah, premise, strong. Character development? So solid. Starting off, everyone is pretty heavily stereotyping each other, but it's clear from the jump that there's so much we aren't seeing below the surface, and I loved the way those deeper parts of each character came out as things progressed. It was done so naturally, it never felt forced, and the way the characters bonded as more was revealed about them felt very real. I thought it was so well done, letting things unfold together the way they did.

And finally, the inhuman faces appearing in the woods...MY GOD. Psychological warfare, seriously. Things that make the reader question reality is such a tricky line to tow (toe? Fuck, I don't know.). I'm sure some people love being so thoroughly gaslit by the media they're consuming that they have no idea what's up and what's down anymore, but that's not my thing. I do enjoy not being sure what's real and what isn't, but it often goes way too far for me to enjoy. This book?

Truly, just the right amount of questioning reality for me without putting me off of the story. It was enough to keep me on the edge of my seat and make it impossible to put the book down because I had to get to the bottom of things, but not enough for me to give up and decide I didn't care what was happening because it was all too obfuscated. If I didn't keep my nails cut super short for climbing, I would have been biting them off through at least the last half of the book. Masterfully written.

Your Blood, My Bones - Kelly Andrew

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆
Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆
Overall: ⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Wyatt Westlock has one plan for the farmhouse she's just inherited - to burn it to the ground. But during her final walkthrough of her childhood home, she makes a shocking discovery in the basement - Peter, the boy she once considered her best friend, strung up in chains and left for dead.

Unbeknownst to Wyatt, Peter has suffered hundreds of ritualistic deaths on her family's property. Semi-immortal, Peter never remains dead for long, but he can't really live, either. Not while he's bound to the farm, locked in a cycle of grisly deaths and painful rebirths. There's only one way for him to break free. He needs to end the Westlock line.

He needs to kill Wyatt.

With Wyatt's parents gone, the spells protecting the property have begun to unravel, and dark, ancient forces gather in the nearby forest. The only way for Wyatt to repair the wards is to work with Peter - the one person who knows how to harness her volatile magic. But how can she trust a boy who's sworn an oath to destroy her? When the past turns up to haunt them in the most unexpected way, they are forced to rely on one another to survive, or else tear each other apart."

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 Look...I'm going to start this review by acknowledging that this type of book? Really not for me. It isn't my cup of tea, it's never something I'm going to seek out, and I read it more out of obligation than anything else. Disclaimer having been made, I'll also say that the synopsis from the cover makes it sound so much more suspenseful and spooky than it actually ended up being. Former friends, dark secrets, one plotting murder, but then...a grisly twist forces them together. 

Instead, what the reader gets is things revealed that don't totally make sense to reveal, then the narrative sort of pretending like those things haven't been revealed and tiptoeing around them with weird hints even though, hello, that's not a secret! All while things that it would actually make sense to reveal to the reader are inexplicably kept a secret. I didn't totally understand how the author chose what to reveal and what to keep hidden, and it made things both frustrating and a little boring. Maybe I was supposed to get swept up in how Wyatt didn't yet know the things I did, but trying to do that just didn't do it for me.

Add to that that nothing much really happened and...eh. Don't get me wrong, there were a few creepy-lite moments, but thinking back on my reading experience, it was pages and pages of angsty arguing between Wyatt and Peter and then like a few paragraphs of oh my god! And then immediately back to the angsty arguing. It would have been forgivable if all the back and forth between them furthered the story, but it was just rehashing the exact same plot point over and over with no new development. No thank you. Begging you to pick up the pace. 

Maybe I would have gotten more swept away in everything if horror was more my thing, but I don't know. If anything, I feel like my aversion to anything in this vein should have meant even horror-lite gave me the shivers. Instead, I was three hundred pages in and checking to see how much was left, wondering if something was actually going to happen at some point. Spoiler alert: Not really! My approach when I write fiction is "write these big scenes that I already have in my head!" and then "FUCK, now I have to fill in around these, how do I do that?" And this book very much read like that. They had an idea for a beginning, they had an idea for the end, and then...uhh....

Anyway, I totally thought I had finished this review and scheduled it to post yesterday, and I just realized that was not the case. So...enjoy, it was mostly done.

The Last Bloodcarver - Vanessa Le

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆☆☆
Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆☆
Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"In the harsh, industrial city of Theumas, she is seen not as a healer as she was meant to, but a monster that kills for pleasure. And in the city's criminal underbelly, the rarest of monsters are traded for gold. When Nhika is finally caught by the infamous Butchers, she's auctioned off to the highest bidder - a mysterious girl garbed in white. But this strange buyer doesn't want to use Nhika as an assassin or a trophy piece. She intends to use Nhika's bloodcarving to heal the last person who saw her father's killer.

As Nhika delves into the investigation amid Theumas's wealthiest and most powerful, all signs point to Ven Kochin, an alluring yet entitled physician's aide intent on casting her out of his opulent world. But despite his relentless attempts to push her away, something inexplicable draws Nhika to him. When she discovers Kochin is not who he claims to be, Nhika must face a greater, more terrifying evil, turning her quest for justice into a fight for her life.

Her only chance to survive lies in a terrible choice - become the dreaded monster the city fears, or risk destroying herself and the future of her kind."

📚📚📚 

I've been making a concerted effort to read all the books I buy this year, which includes my random monthly book subscriptions. This is one that I've been curious about, and I got into it right away. It was a bedtime read, and I finished it in four nights. It was hard to put down, and honestly if I wasn't exhausted from iron deficiency and a pup recovering from surgery who wakes me up over and over every night, I would probably have stayed up past my bedtime to finish it even faster. 

I found the premise super interesting, and I loved Nhika and her very complicated relationship with her mysterious rescuer, the woman in white, and her family. Without spoilers, I will say that I unraveled the mystery pretty early on in the book, but even with my strong suspicions of what was going on, the story pulled me in. I think my last night of reading I had about a hundred and fifty pages left, and I refused to go to bed without finishing it. Crushing decision, because some of the last hundred and fifty pages are so heartbreaking, so then when I went to sleep I was very sad. But it was so good! 

The only downside to having read this book...is that now the other book subscription books I need to read from this year all sound scary and kind of horror-y and not necessarily my vibe. 😭 I guess there's a reason I left them for last.

A Whisper of Curses - J. Elle

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆☆☆
Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆
Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"While the new Magick Academy is under construction, an invitation to Retreat Week arrives! Before the students leave Park Row, Kyana is grabbed by an Available and, even after she slips from the spirit's grasp, can't stop either laughing or crying. Ashley thinks whatever it is, Dr. Minzy, a famous teacher at the retreat, will know what to do. But when the portal to the retreat suddenly dissolves, trapping everyone, Ash thinks Availables are involved. With Kyana acting weird and Russ live-casting everything to the MagickWorld, should Ash say something to the directors (even though she isn't sure she's right) or mind her business and trust that Dr. Minzy will fix it?"

📚📚📚 

It's always a pleasant surprise when I learn that a book I like has a sequel out that I didn't know about, and this was no exception. I reviewed book one, A Taste of Magic, a while back and really enjoyed it. Very fun, unique take on magic and how it fits into the regular world. I loved the way this book expanded not only on that world, but on the characters within it. Using a dual perspective to let readers get to know Ashley better and featuring Russ more was so fun, and even through all the drama, I loved the way their different strengths complemented each other.

I also found the mystery intriguing. It seems like a hard thing to balance, giving the reader enough information that they aren't totally lost and confused without giving them too much and making it boring and obvious, and I thought J. Elle did a great job of finding the sweet spot. I think my one wish would have been, in a surprise twist for a middle grade review, having a little bit longer of an ending. Shocking, I know. I'm impossible. It didn't need to be much longer, and overall I thought the length and pace were great, but there was some stuff that ended up getting a quick recap instead of showing it play out that I think giving us a teeny bit more would have made more exciting. That's my tiny gripe.

Other than that, great story, very intriguing, and I found the way that stress and pressure was incorporated and influenced the way the characters acted was a really solid way to address the way adults, sometimes unconsciously, put their expectations on kids and create that pressure and a sense that they have to perform to a certain level in order to be "worth it" or good enough. It was a big theme of the book and something I don't see often. Excellent.

The Lost Library - Rebecca Stead and Wendy Mass

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆☆☆
Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆☆
Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"When a mysterious little free library (guarded by a large orange cat) appears overnight in the small town of Martinville, eleven-year-old Evan plucks two weathered books from its shelves, never suspecting that his life is about to change. Evan and his best friend, Rafe, quickly discover a link between one of the old books and a long-ago event that none of the grown-ups want to talk about. The two boys start asking questions whose answers will transform not only their own futures, but the town itself.

Told in turn by a ghost librarian named Al, an aging (but beautiful) cat named Mortimer, and Evan himself, The Lost Library is a timeless story from award-winning authors Rebecca Stead and Wendy Mass. It's about owning your truth, choosing the life you want, and the power of a good book (and, of course, the librarian who gave it to you)."

Do you want to know a secret? I have to look up the name for the Middle Grade Mega Awesome Super Fantastic Massive Review Spree every time I put it in a post. It's still happening though, and today we're here with a book that it would basically have been impossible for me NOT to love. Just over 200 pages, yes please! A book about a library and books? I'm liiiistening... Lovely, positive, warm librarian rep? 🤤It's like they wrote it just for me.

So, yeah. I LOVE THIS BOOK. I mean...the entirety of chapter 13 alone. I would type the whole chapter here for you to read, but that seems unwieldy. Still, though, I'm tempted. It's such a beautiful chapter, highlighting how much the librarians at the burned-down library loved and cared for their patrons, and there's an exchange at the end between a young, shy patron and Al that just...makes me misty-eyed even thinking about it now. It highlights how deeply stories can touch us and how we can share our love of stories in different ways. And the cherry on top was this quote that I loved:

"I am not upset when others don't love the books I love. We each have our own book spaces inside us, and they do not match up perfectly, nor should they."

Such a lovely sentiment, and a great way to think about our experience with sharing stories and finding connection through them.

Anyway, chapter 13 was a particularly excellent chapter within an overall excellent book. The mystery hooked me right away, and I enjoyed the way it unfolded through the different perspectives. I loved watching Evan make connections and piece things together bit by bit, and I really enjoyed the way his exploration and investigation slowly revealed details about other characters. This is a short book, so I didn't expect the depth of character development it contained - it's good, y'all. 

And the TWISTS. There were some things I saw coming (even then, it was satisfying to find out I had guessed right), but others caught me completely off guard. I know I gasped out loud at least once at a reveal, and a couple moments straight-up made me cry. Just...a lovely, cozy mystery to curl up with.

No One Leaves the Castle - Christopher Healy: Part 2

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆☆
Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆
Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover: 

"The Lilac. The bard songs say that she's the world's most fearsome bounty hunter. That there's no criminal she can't catch, no mystery she can't solve.

None of that is true. Yet.

In reality, the Lilac is just a kid, and the bard who wrote all that is her best friend, Dulcinetta. But when a priceless artifact goes missing from the home of famed monster hunter Baron Angbar, the Lilac and Netta see their chance to apprehend the thief and make a name for themselves.

When they get to Castle Angbar, however, and meet the Angbar family and their servants and guests - an unsavory group of nobles, mages, and assorted creatures, each more shady than the last - the Lilac begins to wonder if the reward is worth the trouble.

And that's before the dead body is discovered.

Now everyone is magically sealed inside the castle - and there is a murderer among them. If the Lilac wants to make it out with her reputation intact, it's going to be up to her to figure out who the killer is. But everyone in the castle - even the Lilac herself - has secrets to hide, and as the walls literally start to close in around them, the Lilac worries that her first job as a bounty hunter may be her last..."

Welcome back to the Middle Grade Mega Awesome Super Fantastic Massive Review Spree! I finally finished this, and I was definitely right that this book is less spooky, more silly, but that wasn't a bad thing. I thought Healy found a great balance between goofy moments and establishing a sense of urgency and a little bit of an ominous tone. I think the pace could have been stepped up a teensy bit (I've griped about this before - this book is almost 400 pages, please give me a middle grade fantasy that is shorter and snappier!), but as I got further in, things sped up enough that I think if a kid gave it a chance and got into it, they would get invested and want to find out what happens.

Aside from the Lilac and Netta giving everyone nicknames, which is something I also do and a detail I loved, I think my favorite thing about this book was all the red herrings. An embarrassment of red herrings! It was so fun! Which of these are real clues? Are any of them?! Did someone even actually steal the artifact? Or was this all some giant trick? In this book, nothing is as it seems and like the Lilac, you've got to keep your wits about you. It's a solid read, and I actually think it would be a good non-spooky fall/Halloween read. I give it a solid four stars, and I can't wait to recommend it to students once I get it added into my collection.

No One Leaves the Castle - Christopher Healy

Welcome to the second review in the Middle Grade Mega Awesome Super Fantastic Massive Review Spree! Although I will fully admit I'm cheating, this is NOT actually a review of the book, because I just started reading it. But I thought I would pivot and try out a "first thoughts" thing - going into a book with no knowledge about what to expect and sharing my initial reactions after the first few chapters. 

(And if you're thinking "Dewey, you're clearly doing this because you don't have a book ready to review and you're desperate," then first of all, how dare you? And second of all, yes, OBVIOUSLY. But necessity is the mother of invention, or whatever the saying is.)

So, let's see how this goes, shall we? I'll start us off on the same footing, going into this with equal information with which to form a first impression. Let's take a look at the book cover.

So, maybe a little spooky? Mysterious vibes, for sure. I picked this thinking it would maybe make a good semi-spooky book to add to my school library after I finished it, hopefully just in time for fall/Halloween. My students are always begging for more spooky books, so very first impression, this seems like a promising potential new option for them - probably not GENUINELY scary, but spooky, wandering-through-the-woods-late-at-night-with-nothing-but-the-light-of-the-moon-to-guide-you vibes.

In a complete reversal, based on the first couple pages, this actually seems like a tongue-in-cheek, funny take on what typically might be a spooky story. Case in point, our omniscient narrator:

"Unfortunately for Gribbinsnood Flornt, he was looking to get out of [a mystery].He was not a fan of mystery. Mystery went hand in hand with the Unknown, and Flornt was happiest when he knew exactly what would happen next. (Personally, I also love knowing things. It's the whole reason I became a narrator - narrators know everything.)"

I immediately highlighted that (with a removable tab, because I'm putting this in my school library. I only write in books I'm keeping for personal library), because it really tickled me. So...maybe not scary? Maybe a little cheeky and one-liner-y. This was further confirmed when "The Lilac," a 14-year-old girl trying to break into the bounty hunter game by hiring a fledgling bard to sing of her great deeds and convince people to hire her, contemplates the many pubs she has been inside, such as the Stumpy Boarhound and the Hairless Pidgeon, and then observes that as a general rule, "the stranger the name, the rowdier and more dangerous the pub." Again, not scary, although I will be stealing this general rule for my DnD campaign.

And speaking of DnD, while this book has moved pretty decidedly away from the "spooky" category for me, it DOES give me strong Dungeons & Dragons vibes, and I am very on board with that. I don't have quite as many students clamoring for these types of stories as I do for scary ones, but I ran a DnD class for a bunch of students last year, so several of them have gotten more interested in adventuring stories. Based on what I've read so far, I think they'll enjoy this one.

The Kingdom Over the Sea - Zohra Nabi

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆☆☆
Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆
Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"'My Own Yara,

If you are reading this, then something terrible has happened. And you are on your own. To return to the city of Zehaira, you must read out the words on the back of this letter...Good luck, my brave girl.'

When twelve-year-old Yara's mother passes away, she leaves behind a letter and a strange set of instructions. Yara must travel from the home she has always known to a place that is not on any map - Zehaira, a world of sorcerers, alchemists, and simmering magic. But Zehaira is not the land it used to be. The practice of magic has been outlawed, the Sultan's alchemists are plotting a sinister scheme, and the answers Yara is searching for seem to be out of reach. Yara must summon all her courage to discover the truth about her mother's past and her own identity...and to find her place in this magical new world."

Could this be the start of a Middle Grade Mega Awesome Super Fantastic Massive Review Spree? It's possible! Prepare yourselves for an imminent onslaught, just in case. Batten down the hatches, cover your windows with planks of wood, hide in the bathtub. Whatever it is people do in inclement weather. It's a middle grade monsoon! (See, this works because it could be torrential rain that leads to flooding, or it could be a Phoenix monsoon where this whole paragraph is the humidity building up, and then...no rain. Just this lone review. Guess we'll see which it is.)

Anyway, this book was solid! It went by sneakily fast - I was really surprised when I realized I was coming up on the last few chapters - so this will probably be a brief review, since it was such a whirlwind of a read. I enjoyed the world, but we got such a small glimpse of it and so little detail into why some things were the way they were that rather than feeling invested in it, I was left wanting more detail. Not a bad thing, I would read more books set in the world to get that detail! But I wish there was a touch more time spent on the worldbuilding.

For me, the strongest part of the book was the characters. Yara was determined, clever, and stubborn, her relationships with some of the secondary characters she comes across (trying not to give spoilers or I would be more specific!) develop so well and tugged at heartstrings. Some of these relationships also did a great job of building suspense and making me want to keep reading so I could figure out what was going on. And even minor characters drew me in so immediately that I was excited for any mention of them. Very impressive character development! They were the best part of the world, for sure.

As for the plot...solid. It's hard to get more into it without spoilers, but if you like magic, battling evil, and unraveling mysteries, this might be up your alley. Check it out!

(Also, the cover is very pretty, had to throw it out there.)

Queen of the Tiles - Hanna Alkaf

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆☆
Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆☆
Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"When Najwa Bakri walks into her first Scrabble competition since her best friend's death, it's with the intention to heal. Perhaps it wasn't the best idea to choose the very same competition where said best friend, Trina Low, died. It's macabre, but Najwa finds meaning in the gesture, because she's not ready to give up Trina just yet.

But the same can't be said for all the other competitors. With former Scrabble Queen Trina gone, her friends are eager to take the throne. All's fair in love and Scrabble, but all bets are off when Trina's formerly inactive Instagram starts posting again, with cryptic messages suggesting that maybe Trina's death wasn't as straightforward as everyone thought. And maybe someone at the competition had something to do with it.

As secrets are revealed and the true colors of her friends are shown, it's up to Najwa to find out who's behind these mysterious posts - not just to save Trina's memory, but to save herself."

 Mystery, love triangles, word nerdery...this book has everything. I was excited to read this after I loved The Weight of Our Sky so much, and Hanna Alkaf knocked it out of the park again. Clues unraveled at just the right pace to make the book impossible to put down, and I loved the way that Najwa's assumptions about each character influenced - and sometimes hindered - her investigation. And there were so many perfectly-placed red herrings that I kept thinking I had it figured out only to have the rug pulled out from under me.

I don't want to get into details about the book because I don't want to accidentally spoil anything, but this is probably the most excited book set at a Scrabble tournament that you will ever read. Also, she would destroy me, but I would love to play Scrabble with Najwa and talk about the definitions of each word. I'm firmly on her side as far as word meaning - I don't understand how anyone could memorize a bunch of words for Scrabble and not want to know what they mean.