Fantasy

Book Review: STRANGE BEASTS by Susan J. Morris

| Jessica Crawford

Strange Beasts by Susan J. Morris is a 384 page novel published in 2024 by Bindery Books.

Genre:

Mystery, Gaslamp Fantasy

Opening Line:

Samantha Harker’s heels rang on the fine marble floors as she hurried past plaster reliefs of scenes torn from myth.

My Thoughts:

Are you interested in stories about government organizations dedicated to investigating supernatural phenomena? Are you curious what a partnership between the daughter of Mina and Jonathan Harker from Bram Stoker’s Dracula and the daughter of Professor Moriarty from the Sherlock Holmes series would look like? Did you like the idea of the bookish researcher (with an academic and personal interest in the occult, like Ninth House) taking to the field like in the Emily Wilde books? The possibility of a quasi-religious/political group being behind horrific beastly attacks like in The Brotherhood of the Wolf? The scheming to trap a potential werewolf at the opera like in Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within? Do you appreciate queer representation in the books you read, with a gentle romance arc that takes a backseat to the adventurous and mysterious plot? Do you like your feminist rage to have actual, literal bite?

If you said yes to any of the above, then do I have a treat for you!

In 1903, Sam and Hel are agents of the London Field Office of The Royal Society for the Study of Abnormal Phenomena. Ostensibly, the group hunts dangerous monsters of the paranormal variety. Our two heroines are sent to Paris to look into a spree of brutal murders thought to have been committed by some kind of Capital B Beast. Their investigation takes them to illicit salons, the catacombs, the opera, and many other places besides.

The two women must learn to trust one another, which does not come easy. Sam is used to keeping her ability as a channel secret, as most people believe this means she will inevitably fall under the sway of monsters and is therefore a danger herself. Conversely, everyone knows the identity of Hel’s father, but what they don’t know is that by making the choice to free herself from his influence, she guaranteed that he will always target people she gets close to.

My one complaint is that it seems like this book tried to be and do a little too much. There’s Sam channeling, false visions, a hidden rage, Jakob Van Helsing (son of Abraham) foiling her wherever she goes in a bid to save her from her own inexorable descent into monstrousness, the men in the Royal Society discounting the abilities of the women, personal agency, the question of monster versus victim, alchemy, religious and political motivations, the potential for Moriarty to be manipulating their investigation, covert ciphers, messages sent via bees…all on top the of the basic premise of uncovering who is responsible for the murders and stopping them.

(And one extremely niggling issue: I understand that “wills o’the wisp” is probably the proper plural form, but it still sounds off enough to kick me from the immersion in the story, and it is a term that gets used SO. MUCH.)

Even with being a bit extra, this is a 4.75 star book for me. I really liked the characters, the early twentieth century Paris setting, the paranormal elements, and the investigation into the Beast killings. It was a lot of fun, and I wasn’t bored for even a moment. It does leave the door open for another adventure to come. I will be keeping an eye on this author, and this publisher, for sure.

Thank you to NetGalley, Bindery Books, and Inky Phoenix Press for the eARC in exchange for my unbiased review.

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Book Review: A GRIM REAPER’S GUIDE TO CATCHING A KILLER by Maxie Dara

| Jessica Crawford

A Grim Reaper’s Guide to Catching a Killer by Maxie Dara was published by Berkley in 2024, and is the first in the SCYTHE Mystery series, although this story works as a standalone.

Genre:

Mystery

Opening Line:

I tapped the address in my file with the lid of the pen I’d been chewing on.

My Thoughts

I took this delightful mystery in via audio (the narration was fantastic!)

Kathy works for a company called S.C.Y.T.H.E. as a collector–she goes to the scene of a death and transports the person’s soul to the appropriate location for processing into the afterlife. But the soul of 17 year old Conner convinces her he was murdered by someone in her organization. They must investigate what really happened and why it was covered up, all before Conner’s soul becomes fated to be stuck on Earth forever as a ghost. All this while 42 year old Kathy is going through a divorce and pregnant with her first child.

The mystery was all well and good, but it was the relationships that made this one so touching. Conner really felt a lack of love from his parents, and Kathy worries she will be a terrible parent. The two of them wind up helping each other out far beyond working together to save Conner from an eternity as a ghost. This found family aspect was so sweet!

The narrative style of this book is super amusing, and I let out some laughs here and there. The story definitely left me with some questions about details (what exactly does Kathy do at her cubicle in the office all day every day for a job as what amounts to a currier?) But it was sweet and funny enough that these things didn’t bother me overmuch. I really enjoyed this one!

🔥 No steamy content

🔪 No on-page violence or gruesome content

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Book Review: HOUSE OF FRANK by Kay Synclaire

| Jessica Crawford

House of Frank by Kay Synclaire is a standalone novel coming October 15th from Bindery Books.

Genre:

Cozy Fantasy, Romance, LGBTQIA+

Opening Line:

“Sing for me,” you whisper. “Please.”

My Thoughts:

3.5 stars for this is a cozy fantasy story with grieving as a major theme throughout, and an LGBTQIA+ romance.

Saika is a music witch mourning the death of her sister. Fiona made her promise to see that her ashes were planted at the arboretum at Ash Gardens, where they will grow into something beautiful. Even after she arrives at Ash Gardens, Saika finds she is not yet ready to part with her sister’s ashes, and she winds up staying on and helping out around the place. She gets to know the others employed there, including cherubs, an elf, a half-gargoyle, and a one-of-a-kind beast. It turns out they are all suffering their own losses, and develop relationships that allow them to help one another navigate through their grief.

This was nice story of love, loss, friendship, and healing. The range of characters was nice, although you only get to know a few of them beyond surface level. I wasn’t really feeling the romance between our two lovebirds, personally–their interactions with one another were more irritating than anything, in my opinion, but it made for a sweet story. This is a slower-paced character driven tale, and though it takes place in a fantasy world, we are only shown this one specific part of it at Ash Gardens (with one day trip into the city). Potential readers should also know the narration often veers into second person, as Saika addressing her departed sister. It’s not like the entire book is written in second person point of view, but some people may be turned off even by a portion of it being so.

Now if I may grumble a little bit – when Saika reads that a dragon laying eggs means it’s trying to start a family and explains this to others, and their response is, “I had no idea!’…what exactly was their understanding of how eggs work?! Also, this is another case of me being taken by surprise by the occasional F-word sprinkled throughout–cursing in books doesn’t bother me (as long as it’s not excessive), but was surprising in what otherwise seemed like such a wholesome story.

But overall this was a decent cozy, emotional yet hopeful read.

Thank you to Bindery Books and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my unbiased review.

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Book Review: A SORCERESS COMES TO CALL by T. Kingfisher

| Jessica Crawford

A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher is a 336 page standalone novel published by Tor Books in 2024.

Genre:

Fantasy, Fairytale Retelling

Opening Line:

There was a fly walking on Cordelia’s hand and she was not allowed to flick it away.

After reading and adoring What Moves the Dead and A House with Good Bones, I adopted T. Kingfisher as one of my autobuy authors. Her newest novel, A Sorceress Comes to Call, is a reimaging of Goose Girl by the Brothers Grimm, with the inclusion of Kingfisher’s signature humor as well as some additional dark fantastical elements.

Fourteen-year-old Cordelia is the daughter of a ruthless, social-climbing sorceress. She is terrified of her mother, who not only permits her daughter no privacy, but goes so far as to frequently take control of her body. When she sets her sights on the Squire of Chatham and gets to work trying to procure a marriage proposal from him, Cordelia finds allies among his family, friends, and household staff. Can this group of unlikely heroes manage to best a wicked woman with immense power and a demonic familiar?

This is a grimly suspenseful story with great characters, and funny lines sprinkled throughout. This is not my favorite of this author’s work, but it’s still a decent showing. And it makes a beautiful shelf trophy!

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Book Review: THE HEXOLOGISTS by Josiah Bancroft

| Jessica Crawford

The Hexologists by Josiah Bancroft is a 318 page novel published by Orbit in 2024, and is the first entry in a new series.

Genre: Fantasy

Subgenres: Steampunk, cozy

Synopsis: The first book in a wildly inventive and mesmerizing new fantasy series from acclaimed author Josiah Bancroft where magical mysteries abound and only one team can solve The Hexologists.

The Hexologists, Iz and Warren Wilby, are quite accustomed to helping desperate clients with the bugbears of city life. Aided by hexes and a bag of charmed relics, the Wilbies have recovered children abducted by chimney-wraiths, removed infestations of barb-nosed incubi, and ventured into the Gray Plains of the Unmade to soothe a troubled ghost. Well-acquainted with the weird, they never shy away from a challenging case.

But when they are approached by the royal secretary and told the king pleads to be baked into a cake—going so far as to wedge himself inside a lit oven—the Wilbies soon find themselves embroiled in a mystery that could very well see the nation turned on its head. Their effort to expose a royal secret buried under forty years of lies brings them nose to nose with a violent anti-royalist gang, avaricious ghouls, alchemists who draw their power from a hell-like dimension, and a bookish dragon who only occasionally eats people.

Armed with a love toughened by adversity and a stick of chalk that can conjure light from the darkness, hope from the hopeless, Iz and Warren Wilby are ready for a case that will test every spell, skill, and odd magical artifact in their considerable bag of tricks.

Opening Line:

“The king wishes to be cooked alive,” the royal secretary said, accepting the proffered saucer and cup and immediately setting both aside.

My Thoughts:

Josiah Bancroft is a criminally unsung fantasy author. His first novel, Senlin Ascends, was self-published and submitted to author Mark Lawrence’s Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off. It made it to the final stage of the competition before losing to another novel, but had been reviewed so positively by the book bloggers that it gained its own following. It’s the first book in a now-completed tetralogy, The Books of Babel. The Hexlogists is the first book in his new series, and it is pretty darn great! A work of fantasy, this new world he has created has a healthy helping of steampunk elements, and some cozy factors to boot (although the stakes are certainly high).

It was bedlam, a hedonistic riot, or as Victor described it, “the usual whoop-de-do.”

Isolde and Warren Wilby are a very happily married couple known as The Hexologists, though it’s really only Is who practices the art, while War mostly cooks gourmet meals, acts as the brawn when called for, and takes over in social situations requiring the finesse that his wife lacks. Neither is much of a fan of the Crown and its policies, but find themselves hired to look into the matter of blackmail by someone claiming to be the illegitimate child of the king. Of course, there winds up being much, MUCH more going on behind the scenes, and our hexologists are in for quite the adventure.

“That is a Hex of Woe. Its bearer will suffer from insomnia, vertigo, tremors, impotence, styes, tinnitus, and galloping flatulence.”

Bancroft fleshes out this fantasy world with its politics and history of its magics: wizardry, alchemy, necromancy, and hexology. I admit to being a bit lost at times with the details of world building. But this was more than made up for with the fascinating characters, engaging adventures, and an abundance of lines that made me literally laugh out loud. I love how this author writes more unique fantasy rather than simply borrowing from what has become standard for the genre. The result of that combined with the humorous voice of his writing is simply delightful. It’s got the discipline of hex-casting, an incubus who can tell you the details about any corpse buried within its jurisdiction, a gargoyle Goddess of Grotesques, and a gourmand dragon inside what amounts to a bag of holding and who offers many moments of hilarity throughout the story.

He soothed her with walks and theater tickets and outings to bookshops, museums, and restaurants where he confounded the staff by pouring entire boats of gravy into a tattered carpetbag that vented fire like a steak flambé.

There is some mild violence in this book, and several fade to black scenes of our heroes getting randy, but nothing graphic in either regard. This book does not end on a cliffhanger, but just leaves the door open for further escapades for our intrepid duo. Reading this was a delight and I definitely plan on continuing in the series when the sequel is released. I cannot recommend this author enough to fans of the genre!

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Book Review: COFFEE ADVENTURES: QUESTS FOR THE PERFECT CUPPA JOE

| Jessica Crawford

Coffee Adventures: Quests for the perfect cuppa joe is an anthology of short stories published by Raconteur Press in 2024, edited and illustrated by Cedar Sanderson. Authors include Jesse A. Barrett, J.L. Curtis, Kevin Harris, CE Hughes, Callie Johnson, Christopher Markman, Sherri Mines, J. Kenton Pierce, and Medron Pryde.

What a fun collection of short stories!

I read this anthology because a coworker and friend of mine wrote one of the entries. My understanding is that Raconteur Press is a small publishing operation that accepted submissions with an interesting prompt: choose one of the many blends of coffee served by neighboring business King Harv’s Imperial Coffee and write a story about how it came to be. I may not have the details exactly right, but it was something to that effect.

The results did not disappoint! Not only are there quality stories that were tightly edited here, the editor herself also apparently created custom art for each one, displayed as illustrations at the beginning of each entry. These were just wonderful.

These stories are mainly fantasy or science fiction. With a subject like coffee, many of them fit into the “cozy” subgenre, and most of them are adventurous in nature. Several were quite funny. I was very impressed!

It’s got hyena sorcerers, coffee liches, ghouls, deities, feral space girl scouts, geishas, and more. Including, of course, a whole lot of coffee. What’s not to love?

If you like short stories, fun, and, perhaps most importantly, coffee, you most definitely should give this a read.

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Book Review: A LETTER TO THE LUMINOUS DEEP by Sylvie Cathrall

| Jessica Crawford

A Letter to the Luminous Deep: The Sunken Archive: Book One by Sylvie Cathrall is a 400 page novel published in 2024 by Orbit.

Genre:

Cozy Fantasy Romance/Mystery

Opening Line:

Dear Scholar Clel,

Instead of reading further, I hope you will return this letter to its envelope or, better yet, crumple it into an abstract shape that might look quite at home on a coral reef.

Synopsis:

A charming fantasy set in an underwater world with magical academia and a heartwarming penpal romance, perfect for fans of  A Marvellous Light  and  Emily Wilde’s Encylopaedia of Faeries.

A beautiful discovery outside the window of her underwater home prompts the reclusive E. to begin a correspondence with renowned scholar Henerey Clel. The letters they share are filled with passion, at first for their mutual interests, and then, inevitably, for each other.

Together, they uncover a mystery from the unknown depths, destined to transform the underwater world they both equally fear and love. But by no mere coincidence, a seaquake destroys E.’s home, and she and Henerey vanish.

A year later, E.’s sister Sophy, and Henerey’s brother Vyerin, are left to solve the mystery, piecing together the letters, sketches and field notes left behind—and learn what their siblings’ disappearance might mean for life as they know it.

Inspired, immersive, and full of heart, this charming epistolary tale is an adventure into the depths of a magical sea and the limits of the imagination from a marvelous debut voice.

My Thoughts:

This epistolary novel is told through a formal academic yet delightful tone, and is full of fantastical mystery and cozy romance. There is queer and disability representation, which is great. Although there is a romance, there is no steamy content, and there is no violence. The overall story was intriguing, but the execution was kind of a miss for me.

This book is comprised entirely of letters, journal entries, excerpts, reports and such. And while the writing is amusing and did in fact have me laughing out loud at times, every character has the exact same voice. Everyone sounds absolutely indistinguishable from anyone else in their manner of speech…er, writing. Though the ideas behind the story are enchanting, with this voice problem and the relatively slow and plodding pace, it wound up being a bit boring to get through. I had to talk myself into picking it back up to read on.

And then of course it doesn’t really end because it turns out it is the first book in a planned (series? duology?), a fact I was not aware of until after I had it in my hands.

I generally don’t like comps because they so often disappoint, as reading is such a personal and unique experience for each reader, but I personally agree with the comparison between this book and Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries, tone-wise, although I myself enjoyed the latter much more.

Epistolary, cozy academic romance, and underwater sci-fi/fantasy mystery are all terms that appeal to me, but in the end the detractions outweighed the delights for me, and I don’t think I will bother picking up the sequel.

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Book Review: STILL THE SUN by Charlie N. Holmberg

| Jessica Crawford

Still the Sun by Charlie N. Holmberg is a 299 page novel published by 47North in 2024.

Genres: Fantasy (primary), science fiction, romance

Opening Line:

Something is missing.

Synopsis:

An ancient machine holds the secrets of a distant world’s past for two intimate strangers in the latest romantic fantasy adventure by Wall Street Journal bestselling author Charlie N. Holmberg.

Pell is an engineer and digger by trade—unearthing and repairing the fascinating artifacts left behind by the mysterious Ancients who once inhabited the sunbaked planet of Tampere. She’ll do anything to help the people of her village survive and to better understand the secrets of what came before.

Heartwood and Moseus are keepers of a forbidding tower near the village of Emgarden. Inside are the remnants of complex machines the likes of which Pell has never seen. Considering her affinity for Ancient tech, the keepers know Pell is their only hope of putting the pieces of these metal puzzles together and getting them running. The tower’s other riddle is Heartwood himself. He is an enigma, distant yet protective, to whom Pell is inexplicably drawn.

Pell’s restoration of this broken behemoth soon brings disturbing visions—and the discovery that her relationship to it could finally reveal the origins of the towers’ strange keepers and the unfathomable reason the truth has been hidden from her.

My Thoughts:

Well wasn’t this just a wonderful fantasy/sci-fi story! I was a little nervous going into this because I felt a bit lukewarm about the other book I’ve read by this author, but this was quite good!

Our POV character Pell is a short, dark, strong woman with a passion for tinkering with unearthed Ancient tech. She lives in a small community with no children, in a desert, next to an impenetrable pink crystal wall and an inaccessible tower, where the sun remains in the same place in the sky at all times, although there are cycles when a tone is heard throughout the world and mists descend. As you learn about this world she lives in you will have no idea what is going on, but just sit back and relax and all will be explained in good time!

One day a tall, pale stranger (there are no strangers on this world!) shows up at Pell’s door asking for her help. He and his companion have access to the tower and it’s filled with broken machines that they desperately need functional once more. Can she figure out how to repair them? While working on the machines, Pell begins to experience visions that feel like they might be hidden memories…She has fixed these machines before.

As I said, for a good portion of this book you have no idea what’s going on, and I got pretty annoyed with Pell and her associates at times (SO MANY TIMES she says, “I need answers, and you have them!” and they refuse to tell her anything or even explain that there is a good reason why they can’t tell her, so she gets angry and has a tantrum, over and over again ad nauseum). Additionally, I lost count of the number of times a character smiling is described as “his/her lip ticked”. And all the details about the machine repairs made my eyes glaze over.

But once we finally get some answers about what this world is and what is truly going on, it was absolutely epic. I will spoiler tag the rest only because when you start this book you’re supposed to be as clueless as Pell, but it was really quite wonderful. SPOILER, BEWARE! You’ve got full lore about different types of gods fighting a war against Ruin, and a plan to actually halt a planet from turning in order to imprison the enemy and stop him/it from destroying, well, everything. And demigods diminished by tendrils of the void. Epic! END SPOILER

I found this story to be unique and interesting and pretty rad once revealed in its entirety. I will now gladly read more of this author’s work!

Note: there is a romance, but any steaminess that happens is fade to black and not explicitly on the page. And if you’re reading this book BECAUSE you like romance, just know that the falling in love bits already happened before this book starts (and were just forgotten for…reasons I cannot reveal without spoiling things). As far as violent content, there is one pretty mild physical confrontation.

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Book Review: THE LOST STORY by Meg Shaffer

| Jessica Crawford

The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer is a 352 portal world fantasy novel published by Ballantine Books in 2024.

Genre: Fantasy

Opening Line:

Once upon a time in West Virginia, two boys went missing.

Well this was just a lovely story!

Two teenage boys went missing in the woods for six months. Now as adults, Rafe has no memory of their time away. Jeremy does, but he’s not telling; what Jeremy DOES do is find missing people and things with seemingly supernatural ease.

Emilie wants to hire Jeremy to find the body of her sister who was kidnapped as a teen and has been missing ever since. What she finds instead is that what really happened to her sister has everything to do with what happened to Rafe and Jeremy all those years ago, and a magical fantasy kingdom a la C. S. Lewis’s Narnia.

These main characters were delightful! They’re funny and sympathetic and complex, and there is a nice LGBTQIA+ romance you find yourself rooting for from early on, before you even know for sure how the characters feel about one another.

The details of the fantasy kingdom are really pretty secondary to the story about the fact that this magical world exists, and how it came to exist. But I honestly didn’t mind that the nitty gritty of being in a fantasy world seemed rather phoned in, because the rest of these things were so wonderful. If I hugged books, this one would definitely be deserving!

Edited to add:

I initially wrote this post before I had devised my rating systems for sexual and violent content. I think I remember that the sexual content all happens off the page, and the only violence I recall is what Emilie imagines had happened to her sister when she went missing, and perhaps a dash of fantasy battling with evil creatures with swords and bows.

I also see now that the final version of this book includes a lovely little map of the fantasy kingdom of Shanadoah, a nice touch.

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