Every Thursday, I will post a new book review here. Check back for the latest reads.
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A Deadly Education: Perfect for teen readers
At the Scholomance, half the students won’t survive to graduation. El is doing well enough – except her magic is powerful and inconveniently primed for evildoing, so she has to be careful not to raze the whole place down.
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House of Hunger: An addicting sapphic gothic tale
In a world where blood is a valuable commodity, a young woman named Marion agrees to become an indentured bloodmaid for a noblewoman – but not everything in the mansion is as it seems.
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Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries (Book 1): Cozy and delightful
Emily Wilde is a socially awkward scholar of fairies. In this diary, she records the encounters and events she faces in a small Scandinavian village as she attempts to study their previously undocumented “Hidden Ones.”
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A Dowry of Blood: Dark and seductive
Told from the perspective of Constanta’s letters to Dracula, we follow her through the centuries of her second life as the ancient vampire’s first bride.
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The Ocean at the End of the Lane: Whimsical and creepy
A middle-aged man suddenly remembers the strange, magical happenings he experienced as a child when he returns to visit the house at the end of the lane from his childhood home.
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Ninth House (Book 1): Gripping and creepy
Alex Stern, who has lived a hard life of drugs and petty crime, is offered a place in Yale’s secret dark magic societies because of her unique ability to see ghosts. One semester in, a woman turns up dead – and Alex thinks the societies are involved.
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Outlawed: Intriguing, but slow
Ada’s life of crime begins after she fails to conceive a child, is accused of witchcraft, and runs away to a gang of non-conforming outlaws.
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The Hawthorne Legacy (Book 2): Entertaining but not mind-blowing
The plot thickens as Avery tries to find the one man who may know why a stranger left his billions to her instead of his own family.
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Mary Jane: A delightful, cozy read
In 1975 Baltimore, 14-year-old sheltered Mary Jane takes a summer nannying job in a home where the psychologist father is treating a drug-addicted rock star and his movie star wife.
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Fourth Wing (Book 1): The best of 2023 so far
Despite being untrained, dealing with chronic pain, and having a target on her back, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail’s mother forces her to enroll in a dragon-riding military college – where the mortality rate for first-years is something like 50% or more. Now Violet has to survive not just the deadly training but the other ruthless students…
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To Shape a Dragon’s Breath: A superb cozy fantasy
Anequs, an indigenous islander in this fantasy world, is required to attend the colonizer’s school away from her people after a newly-hatched dragon chooses her to be its rider.
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Firekeeper’s Daughter: Entertaining and enlightening
After Daunis witnesses a murder, she becomes a confidential informant to the FBI. As more people in her community die, she becomes increasingly conflicted between protecting her tribe and trusting the feds to solve the crime.
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House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City 1): A spectacular series opener
A half-fae “party girl” and an enslaved angel must work together to solve a gruesome case involving murder, demon summoning, and black market drugs.
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The Duke & I (Bridgerton 1): Romanticizing toxic relationships
Simon, a duke avoiding marriage, and Daphne, a socialite looking to get engaged, pretend to court – and must avoid falling in love while they’re at it.
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The Librarianist: Hopeful and funny
Bob Comet is a retired librarian. After a chance encounter with a confused elderly woman, Bob begins volunteering at a retirement community, where he reckons with his past.
