Erin
Aicha was an interesting one for me. From the announcement of this book, it was one of my most highly-anticipated books for 2026 and so to say I put unfairly high expectations on it probably isn't inaccurate. Just think: the story about a Moroccan freedom fighter, described as a story of feminine rage - and lots of it, and with comps to The Priory of the Orange Tree and She Who Became the Sun. How could I not have high expectations?
This debut story has an incredible premise, as mentioned above, but I found myself let down by its execution. One of the big themes is Aicha's rage. I did a search and the word “rage” appeared over 50 times, so you can see that this was clearly something the author wanted you to focus on. However, when looking at her actions and not just doing a search for the word, her so-called rage just came across as brattiness most of the time. Which, she's 20 years old! She's allowed to be a bit bratty and self-righteous! But this was a lot.
The emotions in the book should have been the driving factor, which would have helped with the aforementioned rage/bratty issue. I didn't really feel that any of the characters' emotions were genuine, didn't get to actually sink into those emotions and really feel them. I loved the ideas of so many of the characters, like the sister relationship between Aicha and Samira, but never felt any relationship got fully developed enough to pack an emotional punch. What we got to see of the relationships was shallow, though we were told Aicha felt certain ways about people. The characters themselves were one-dimensional, especially the villain, Duarte, who was cartoon levels of evil. (Not that I wanted to root for him; fuck that guy.) I wanted this book to fuck me up - and there's plenty that happens here that is brutal and horrible and, were I to have been able to connect emotionally, would have fucked me up, but I was left just feeling detached.
I was also surprised that this is marketed as a fantasy book since there is basically nothing fantastical about it until, um, literally the last chapter. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as I do like historical fiction so that wouldn't have been something to discourage me, but if you're expecting a lot of fantasy elements, you'll definitely want to temper your expectations.
Overall, Aicha is a book that could have benefited from some additional editing to hold its reader's hand less (less telling over showing, less repetition to drill ideas into your head, more time on adding dimensions to its characters). However, it has a great concept, and opened my eyes to a piece of history that I was previously unfamiliar with. It was also a quick and fairly engaging read, and I'm not upset to have spent time reading it. I just see the potential that it could be so much more and I want that book.
Thank you to the publisher, Orbit, and to NetGalley for the ARC.
The writing grabbed me from the first page and it did not let up.
The Wolf and His King is a queer retelling of the medieval poem of Bisclavret, which I am unfamiliar with. And I'm so glad this was my introduction to the story as it's a beautiful, emotional way to get introduced. It featured lovely stylistic choices, like only having one character be named or having multiple POVs including one in verse. This sounds kind of odd but trust me, it works. It works so well.
I did find some of the characters a bit underbaked when we got to the second half of the book, and maybe would have liked to see more development of certain relationships, but honestly, it was a minor qualm.
I actually think it's better that I don't say much about this book as I found it such a delight to just discover each page without expectation. If you're looking for yearning, if you're looking for medieval, if you're looking for werewolves, also did I mention the yearning??? This is the book for you - and it happens to have the most gorgeous prose you can imagine.
Thank you to the publisher, Erewhon Books, and to NetGalley for the ARC.
If there's a handful of things I can always count on James S.A. Corey for, they are creative science, compelling worldbuilding, and complex characters, even with side characters. And The Faith of Beasts delivers on all three counts.
The Faith of Beasts expands the world of The Mercy of Gods, with the POV characters quite literally across the universe from one another. You get to see more of the Carryx empire through the lens of the human characters we know (and love??? tbd). Some of this only raises more questions about the Carryx and their ultimate goals, but we also get some answers in this book too! While I did think it was very cool to expand beyond having all the characters together in one setting, this did come at the expense of the character relationships with one another. For so much of the book, the characters were working independently and very physically separate from one another; you add in the fact that we lost so many of the people we knew in book one, and well, you do lose a bit of the relationships and human aspect, which is something I personally love as a reader and think the authors are fantastic at showing. I'd be lying if I said I didn't mourn this a bit in this book. But, that said, we get introduced to new secondary characters, including some interesting characters and promising arcs, and it's a bit impressive how complex these characters are written even for briefly appearing. There is no black or white here, only shades of morally grey.Which is a big theme with Dafyd in this book. But I won't get too much into that because his development and his arc are definite highlights. (Another highlight is the focus on Jessyn and her chapters; I adore her.)I truly have no idea where the final book is going to take us, but it looks to be set up for an absolutely wild ride and I can't wait to get on it.Thank you to the publisher, Orbit, and to NetGalley for the ARC.
I thought Monika Kim's debut, The Eyes Are the Best Part, had a great concept but the execution didn't quite work for me, so when I say I was blown away by Molka, I do not say that lightly or with bias.
Molka was instantly disturbing and uncomfortable to read in a very real way, and I appreciate that the author did not shy away from that, as much as I hated so, so much of it. The hidden cameras and the men who feel entitled to women's time and bodies - well, isn't that just all too prevalent? This was a horror in a very visceral and timely way.
You could really feel for Dahye and her emotional trauma and stress, and even though it was uncomfortable to watch her spiral and make bad choices, and yes, there were some moments of secondhand embarrassment, you couldn't help but root for her.
This was a read that played on a lot of emotions, so if you're ready to feel rage and discomfort and grief and did I mention discomfort, then this is for you.
Thank you to the publisher, Erewhon Books, and to NetGalley for the ARC.
Honestly one of the more creative and unique books I can remember reading in recent years and solidifying Kylie Lee Baker's adult fiction as must-reads for me.
Japanese Gothic is a mixture of historical fiction and fantasy and ghost story and, yes, some horror, and even though the synopsis is entirely accurate, it somehow did not prepare me at all for what this book would be and the trauma and grief that would permeate the story. I will say that I thought there would be more horror - I felt that it leaned heavier into fantasy than horror for most of the book, though the author did not shy away from getting gory whenever an opportunity presented itself.
I'm not sure I really want to say much more as this is one that it's better to just go along for the ride with. Kylie Lee Baker knows how to hook a reader and not let up, throwing you through the gauntlet of emotions in this dreamscape (nightmare?) of a story.
Thank you to the publisher, Hodder & Stoughton, and to NetGalley for the ARC.
I always try to read books I think I'll like, as what is the point otherwise??? but I'm not sure I expected to like this as much as I did.
It kicks off right in the middle of, well, something akin to a zombie apocalypse, and there truly is nothing like throwing you right into the body horror. I loved how the body horror incorporated the nature around it, like a creature having antlers sticking out of it or a fox head, which I realize is a weird thing to say that I loved but it just had such vibrant imagery and worked to tie in some folk horror vibes as well. There was some wonderful descriptive writing and nothing quite like the horror part of it - I could truly picture so many moments of the story, even if those moments were, quite frankly, kind of disgusting.
Beyond the horror part being a standout, I'm a sucker for family dynamics and lots of siblings in stories so that part was always going to work well with me and get me emotionally invested into the story. There perhaps wasn't a ton of character work in this story, but I was still invested.
At the end of the day, a sapphic eldritch horror with family bonds as a motivating factor is never going to not hit on a few levels for me.
Thank you to the publisher, Michael Joseph, and to NetGalley for the ARC.
There are a lot of things to love about On Sundays She Picked Flowers, and it's unlike anything I've read before (complimentary). When I say there's a lot to love, I mean:
• 41 year old main character
• messy family dynamics
• generational trauma
• body horror
• southern gothic
• sapphic
• paranormal romance
Which is an awful lot to put into one book, and while it did make it unique and I appreciated the ambition, it did also mean that the book felt a bit unfocused at times. Maybe it should have been longer to avoid some of the whiplash I felt but also and more importantly to give me more time to bask in this atmospheric and captivating writing.
Thank you to the publisher, S&S/Saga Press, and to NetGalley for the ARC.
Really, a strong 3.5 stars.
Once Was Willem is undeniably well-written. A medieval fantasy-horror told from the perspective of the titular Willem (or more accurately, Once Was Willem), the book has themes around outcast, overpowering corruption, and dare I say some found family?
The castle has been overrun, the lord and his family killed by bandits who have now laid claim to the title of lord. But the new lord isn't the only one grasping for power, as a sorcerer comes to the castle - though not before raising the deceased son of two townspeople. Which makes it sound like a lot going on, but it all ties together nicely in a cohesive story.
I didn't feel like I got to really know any of the characters' personalities that well, so it was hard to get emotionally connected to the story. It was a good story, but I very much felt like an observer, never fully engrossed. I like to be emotionally compromised by books!
All that said, very well-plotted, very well-written, and just a good read.
Thank you to the publisher, Orbit, and to NetGalley for the ARC.
This was a solid book! It was well-written with an intriguing premise, and it's a book about books, which always immediately adds a degree of fun. If you like your fantasy with a central mystery, including a secret society, then this should be on your radar.
I did like this and found the writing technically proficient, but also struggled to connect with it, and I can't quite put my finger on why. It was well-plotted, had a strong mythology, and if I were to summarize the book, I'd think it interesting, so I'm not entirely sure why this failed to hook me. I did struggle with the main character at times, which doesn't help (and especially how she mentally separated Cassandra Fairfax/Cass Holt, they are BOTH YOU), and found the villain very one-dimensional, so I guess the characters were where this didn't quite hit the mark for me.
Regardless, if you want a book about magical books and like that with a side of conspiracy, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this.
Thank you to the publisher, Redhook, and to NetGalley for the ARC.
The least interesting part of this book for me was the romance, and sadly, I think that was clearly the part Ava Reid was most interested in.
A grotesque, gothic tale, Innamorata started out strong. We open with the death of the longtime Mistress of Teeth, Adele-Blance, whose presence looms large over the first quarter of the story despite the reader never actually meeting her. Right away, the story throws us into some of its depravity as we see how each house is named for what it takes from the corpse: teeth for the House of Teeth, blood for the House of Blood, skin for the House of Flesh - you get the idea. This ritual is described in poetic detail, and serves as a prologue for both the writing style and the horror of the book.
The first quarter of the book had me quite engaged. We meet Agnes, the main character, who is a self-imposed mute, second-in-line to the next Mistress of Teeth behind her cousin, and secret heir to many of their grandmother's plans. We meet Marozia, Agnes' first-born cousin and the new Mistress of Teeth, and we see the twisted, codependent relationship the two have formed.
At its heart, this is a story about two things: family politics and bonds, and lustful romance. It's the latter that didn't work for me and, as the story went on, it became evident that was the real main plot here.
Even that could have worked for me with some character development. Who is Liuprand? Seriously, who is he as a person? All I know about him is he's beautiful, large, and will do anything for Agnes, which includes snapping emotionally. That's it. He's otherwise a blank slate of a person, which makes it really difficult to get behind a romance.
Agnes has a lot of potential as a character, though it becomes untapped potential when she completely abandons her grandmother's mission about 25% in, and we never hear of that again. Even though that is the synopsis of the book. But no, after that point, her all-consuming lust for Liuprand is her plotline. And the narrative voice becomes all the weaker for it, because we then have paragraphs upon paragraphs about how beautiful Agnes is, how white her thighs are, how much everyone who actually knows her loves her, and - why? I'm baffled as to why any of these characters care about each other, because the narration is much more interested in going on and on in overwrought language about how beautiful and perfect others find them rather than showing anyone actually developing a relationship with one another.
Marozia is also done dirty by a lack of character work, as she has potential to be a very interesting and complex character. But because she stands in the way of the love story that Ava Reid really wants to write, we're just going to ignore her as an actual person for most of this book.
I often enjoy lyrical and poetic writing, but so much of this just got overwrought and repetitive. You take out maybe a third of the descriptive language and a third of the mentions of how large Liuprand is, and you'd probably cut the book in half.
The worldbuilding, however, was excellent. I was very much into the history of the world, the rituals, the different houses (even though Agnes and Marozia didn't really do anything as members of what we were told was the most-esteemed House of Teeth - but I digress). This book is going to inspire incredible artwork, some of which we've already seen come to life (the North American endpapers/UK cover, anyone?).
Overall, nobody is more disappointed than me that this didn't work for me. Juniper & Thorn is easily my favourite Ava Reid book, so a return to their gothic and depraved writing was something I was salivating over. And there was so much potential here! The storyline itself is a solid idea, the character outlines are fairly perfect, and Reid leans into the gothic and the grotesque in a way that led to the atmosphere I was craving. But between the lack of character development and the writing style, I was left frustrated by the execution of what, by all rights, should have been a 5 star read.
Thank you to the publisher, Del Rey, and to NetGalley for the ARC.
Wow, this blew me away. Emotional and brutal, with complex characters and a defined world, literally what more could I ask for?
Cry, Voidbringer throws you into the world right off the bat, with ample time spent world-building and giving life to the world throughout the book. (I would recommend checking out the very-talented artwork from the author to see someof the settings and really make the scenery come to life.) There's a lot of history to the world, from politics to family legacies to mythology, but I never felt like too much information was being thrown at me - I lapped it up.
The book has three POVs, with Hammer being somewhat of our lead. All three POVs added to the story and were essential to getting a feel for the story, and that feel was mainly “stress and pain” BUT I DIGRESS. There is also found family, and just some really solid character work throughout. I truly felt so much for all the characters and they continue to haunt me. Also, every character is a disaster bisexual, except for the disaster lesbians, so there's that.
Easily one of my favourite books of 2025, and if you're looking for intense epic fantasy with strong character arcs and fantastic world-building, please look no further.
Thank you to the publisher, Solaris, and to NetGalley for the ARC.
Intense, stressful, emotional - The Poet Empress ran me through the gauntlet.
Absolutely brutal in the best way (and also some kind of graphic ways). If you want insanely good character work, tight writing and pacing, and to be torn apart by a narrative, then The Poet Empress is for you.
I will add a couple of notes: this is NOT a romance and this does have feature both some gory scenes and sensitive subjects, so checking the content warnings may not be a bad idea.
Thank you to the publisher, Hachette, and to NetGalley for the ARC.
This book was quite unlike anything I've read before, with the central themes being climate dystopian, corrupt corporations, and sisterhood, and woven together so well.
Skipper's sister Nora is missing. Working for an agricultural company in a larger city, Nora's life has been disconnected from her sisters for quite some time, leaving them in their climate-ravaged village, caring for their ailing and difficult grandmother. But when Skipper and Carmen don't hear from Nora and when she doesn't come home when she's expected to, they make the choice to track her down on their boat, the Bumblebee. It's a journey that takes them much, much further than they could have expected, and opens up a much wider mystery than just “Where's Nora?”
This book was gripping and thoughtful at the same time, a narrow rope to walk. There are parts that are contemplative and observant of this new world, there are parts that are tense and like a thriller, and there are parts that are character-driven, driven by these three very different sisters.
All three of Skipper, Carmen, and Nora were complex and developed characters, and continued that growth and development over the course of the whole story. The flashes back to their pasts and childhoods only added to each of them as fully rounded characters. For a book that would not work without the strength of its characters, this was some wonderful character work.
This book was so well-crafted. I don't think I've ever read anything quite like it, and it'll stick with me for a while.
Thank you to the publisher, HarperVoyager, and to NetGalley for the ARC.
I've got to be honest, I struggled with this one. The description sounded excellent and exactly up my alley, so I went into it quite hopeful, but sadly, just did not connect with it.
Dawn of the Firebird is a story about Khamilla, who has had her family and way of living destroyed twice over, and becomes consumed with the need for revenge, leading her to enter the enemy's training school and infiltrate their army with the intention to get close to those who wronged her family and take them down from within.
Sounds great, right? And add in a unique magic system and some pretty in-depth world-building, there are a lot of stalwarts of epic fantasy done with an interesting new voice. So why did I struggle to pick this up every time?
Two main reasons:
- I found the character work to be lacking. So much of the story is dependent on Khamilla's driving force being revenge for her family, but we didn't actually get to see why she cared about her family. The first 25% was packed with the attack on her home, her move to the palace, her being poisoned a lot, and then her family being attacked, there wasn't much time for actual character development or relationships. Which should be SUCH a motivating factor for her revenge - but that's okay, Khamilla kind of forgets about her whole revenge plot for, well, most of the book, so who cares about motivations?? But it was an ongoing theme even past the first 25% that the relationships between characters weren't well-developed. (Other than the relationship with a certain student of Khamilla's, which was the single highlight of the last 15% of this book.)
- The story itself was fairly repetitive throughout the book: Khamilla is given advice, immediately ignores it, gets extremely injured, vomits, and then miraculously comes out on top. No, really, this is pretty much the book.
So overall, I think there were interesting bones to this book, but the execution left me cold and disengaged.
Thank you to the publisher, Bloomsbury Publishing, and to NetGalley for the ARC.
- do you like lady knights?
- do you like time loops?
- do you like Alix E. Harrow?
- do you like dual second person POV? (stay with me here, it's not as confusing as it sounds, I promise!)
- do you like lyrical prose about taking down fascism in an almost-fairytale setting? (niche interest, I know)
Then guess what? The Everlasting has all of that and some illustrations in the physical copy so you should probably buy it.
This was probably the best book I've read by Adrienne Young, though I've come to the conclusion that her books just aren't really for me.
I liked the idea of a Roman-inspired political fantasy, and that was easily the strongest part of this for me. This is where the best part of the world-building was, in seeing Luca and Maris' relationships with a philosopher, a priestess, and their fellow soldiers and magistrates. Really, I have very little negative to say about the setting and actual plot of the book.
It's the execution of that plot where this book unravelled a bit for me. The jumping timeline, told in dual POVs from Luca and Maris but with a mixture of before and now, made for some strange pacing. I understand why the author chose to intersperse flashback POVs with the present, to drive suspense and make you wonder how things got to this point, and I also recognize that this can be difficult for any author, but in this case, it really did mess with the pacing and made the story feel jarring as well as some parts feel redundant.
The main other part of the book that didn't work for me was the characters, and specifically their development and relationships with others. Maris and Luca was kind of blank slates to me. They didn't really have much development, outside of perhaps some of their relationship with one another, and it was even more glaring when you look at their interactions with other characters. Luca at least got a bit with Vale and with Vitrasian, but poor Maris barely got any meaningful interactions with other characters where the relationship between them was expanded and developed. Sure, she interacted with other characters, but they all felt shallow.
I did enjoy this more than I had expected in some ways, but the pacing issues and the weak characterizations kept me from really getting into it, and in the end, I don't think I'll remember much about this book. If I'm being completely honest, it probably doesn't help that I read a different Roman-inspired fantasy earlier this year that I couldn't help compare it to, the impeccable The Stars Undying, and it's hard for any book to not come up short against that.
Thank you to the publisher, Saturday Books, and to NetGalley for the ARC.
Honestly a treat to have a good standalone epic fantasy. And this has a lot to it!: mysteries and mythology and history and wraiths and religious zealots and horniness for four-armed men- wait.
The characters were the strongest part of this, and specifically their relationships with one another. Obviously the pseudo father-daughter relationship of Llewyn and Siwan is a standout, but I really liked seeing Fola build relationships and her drive to find a family for herself.
Fola herself was a fantastic lead character. She's stubborn and smart and a bit prickly on the surface, but clearly a huge softie. And she has a bird named Frog, so need I say more? (No.)
The plot had politics, religion, and history all at the forefront, but was quite easy to follow. Where the plot shone was when it talked about the magic, mythology, and folklore of the world, which made the story more immersive and engaging to me.
The epilogue of the book really brought things to a satisfying conclusion for me, and bumped up my feelings on the book as a whole a bit. I won't say more because epilogue and all, but I thought it was a wonderful note on which to end the book.
All in all, a strong story with a bit of something for every fantasy read.
Thank you to the publisher, Gollancz, and to NetGalley for the ARC.
I tried to go into this with an open mind, ignoring its origin story and giving it a chance to stand on its own. And did it? Well, yes and also no.
I though the worldbuilding and magic system are some of the best parts, which was a bit surprising, because the author had to rebuild that all to something unique, and I think they did a good job of that. However, while I thouoght the worldbuilding and magic system are the most interesting parts, they're also the parts that could have used significant editing. A lot of info dumping, as if the author spent a lot of time making the world their own, and wanted to show off all the thought they put into it. So, I liked the info but not so much in how it was presented. It was a pretty cool world though!
If that was the strongest part, then the weakest parts were easily the romance and the character relationships. I wanted to try to separate it from its origins, but I think the way the characters were written doesn't allow that - it was as if the writing relied upon you having connections with the characters or knowing their backstories from where they originated, because Alchemised certainly didn't do that (other than Helena and, to a much lesser extent, Kaine). Lots of cool (and horrifying!) ideas, but it was hard to feel any emotional connection to the plot because the characters were so underdeveloped.
The romance wasn't for me, but I'm not a primarily romance reader, so that was always going to be a pretty tough sell. I strongly dislike any romance where a male character keeps repeating “You're mine” to the female love interest though, so an even tougher sell on the romance here.
I can see why this did work for a lot of people and how it hooked people, certainly, and I'm not mad to have read it. I just wish it would have had some stronger editing to make it align more with my particular tastes, but you know, it's not all about me.
It's fitting this “brutal” in the title because this was a fairly high tension book and I was often on the verge of being destroyed by stress. But I survived! And immediately want to read the whole series agai- wait.
I always struggle to review the final book in a trilogy. To get to book three, obviously I liked the series, and if someone is reading a review of book three, obviously they've at least started the series. So it really comes down to: did this stick the landing?
And I think this did. Despite all the stress throughout, the ending wasn't nearly as painful as I thought it would be, but to get there, we had the twisty, political, character-driven sci-fi that I've so loved every step of the way throughout this series. The characters are all complex and real, and really fucked up, and this series that has an overarching theme around genocide could hardly be more timely, so it hits hard on every level. (Read the author note, seriously.)
I am going to be screaming about this series for years to anyone who will listen and probably to those who won't too.
Thank you to the publisher, Orbit, and to NetGalley for the ARC.
This started off fairly strong, but I found it harder and harder to pick it up and stay invested. I did think this would work for me - a gothic murder mystery in a fantasy Vatican and with limited romance! - and I did like the start of it and the building of the religion, but it's very rare that I get two-thirds in and am tempted to put the book down because I just don't care anymore. And even rarer that happens again at 85%. This wasn't a bad book, but I just struggled with actually caring much.
So, what was cool and might work better for others? The religion, for starters, had some very cool bones, and I think the choice of the three lead characters and their different interactions with this religion gave an interesting overview of it - you have the literally-soulless girl who was raised by the church, the inquisitor for the church, and an actual angel, which meant they all had very different ways of interacting with the central religion. Each character was well-defined with interesting traits, but the thing is, I don't feel like any of them really changed much throughout the course of the book - which is a wild thing to say, thinking back to what they went through, but I don't feel like their personalities actually showed any growth or depth. Or maybe I just discovered that I didn't really care for any of the characters.
Honestly, it's hard to say much good or bad about this book when I just couldn't get hooked and therefore couldn't really care. I truly don't feel strongly either way. Would I recommend this to others? Sure, give it a try, see if you're drawn in by the writing, the mystery, the world, and the characters. If you're drawn in by any one of those, there's a decent chance you'll enjoy this.
Thank you to the publisher, Hodderscape, and to NetGalley for the ARC.