Colleen Mondor

Once Was Willem, M.R. Carey (Orbit 978-0-316-50502-4, $18.99, 320pp, tp) March 2025.

Once Was Willem, M.R. Carey’s new supernatu­ral medieval fantasy, is a gorgeously written visit to 12th century England, a time of murderous lords, preoccupied kings and the life-and-death struggles of a small village called Cosham in the fiefdom of Pennick. This was the place and time of narrator Willem Turling, who died from illness at the ...Read More

The Legacy of Arniston House, T.L. Huchu (Tor 978-1-250-88309-4, $29.99, 400pp, hc) November 2024. Cover by Leo Nickolls.

When I sat down the week before Christ­mas to review The Legacy of Arniston House, the latest in T.L. Huchu’s Ed­inburgh Nights series, I had all four of his books stacked up beside my computer. I began reading the series just after Thanksgiving and quickly blew through the adventures of ...Read More

Zodiac Rising, Katie Zhao (Random House 978-0-593-64641-0, $19.99, 416pp, hc) October 2024. Cover by Deb JJ Lee.

Author Katie Zhao opens her young adult fantasy thriller Zodiac Rising with a brief prologue ex­plaining the history behind 12 Chinese warriors, based on the zodiac calendar, who were sum­moned centuries ago in response to a royal plea to battle monsters known as Wrathlings. Their lineage brought peace to the land until ...Read More

Sorcery and Small Magics, Maiga Doocy (Orbit 978-0-316-57675-8, $19.99, 400pp, tp) October 2024.

When I settled in to read Maiga Doocy’s debut, Sorcery and Small Miracles, I expected an ‘‘en­emies to lovers’’ romance with magic between the unserious but sweet protagonist, Leovander ‘‘Leo’’ Loveage, and his classmate, the brooding, often surly, Sebastian Grimm. Both of them are students at the Fount, learning to be sorcerers for reasons that ...Read More

The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door, H.G. Par­ry (Redhook 978-0-316-38390-5, $19.99, 464pp, tp) October 2024. Cover by Lisa Marie Pompilio.

The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door by H.G. Parry ostensibly opens in a secret col­lege magically located between Cambridge and Oxford (aka Camford, “the Cambridge-Oxford University of Magical Scholarship”). But the foreshadowing for a far larger story is set in the first pages, when protagonist Clover Hill ...Read More

The Lies We Conjure, Sarah Henning (Tor Teen 978-1-259-84106-3, $19.99, 400pp, hc) September 2024.

As The Lies We Conjure opens, sisters Ruby and Wren are finishing up a summer stint working at a local Renaissance Fair when they get an offer that impetuous Wren cannot pass up. A customer offers them each $2,000 to attend a family dinner at the local landmark mansion and pretend to be her grandchildren. ...Read More

Castle of the Cursed, Romina Garber (Wednesday Books 978-1-250-86389-8, $21.00, 304pp, hc) July 2024.

The cover of Romina Garber’s Castle of the Cursed includes the line “The House is Always Hungry,” and readers should consider that a fair comment on the story within. As soon as recently orphaned Estela arrives at what she has only recently learned is her family’s “ancestral Spanish castle,” the house plays a huge part ...Read More

The Spellshop, Sarah Beth Durst (Bramble 978-1-250-33397-1, $29.88, 384pp, hc) July 2024.

Author Sarah Beth Durst notes in her Acknowl­edgements to The Spellshop that writing her novel was sparked by hot chocolate and raspberry jam and a desire for “a book that felt like a warm hug.” (I get that sentiment because boy howdy, 2024 has been some kind of tough for a lot of us.) Plenty of pastries ...Read More

Our Wicked Histories, Amy Goldsmith (Dela­corte Press 978-0-583-70395-3, $19.99, 384pp, hc) July 2024. Cover by Marcela Bolivar.

The heroine of Amy Goldsmith’s Our Wicked Histories is Meg, a scholarship student at an exclusive private art school. In the opening pages she is still reeling from an episode a few months earlier when, at a school dance, she made a stupid drunken mistake that obliterated her social life (she has ...Read More

Somewhere Beyond the Sea, TJ Klune (Tor Books 879-1-250-88120-5, $28.99, 416pp, hc) September 2024.

Fans of TJ Klune’s enormously popular The House in the Cerulean Sea were no doubt thrilled to hear about the unexpected sequel, Somewhere Beyond the Sea. The continuing story of Arthur, Linus, and the group of orphaned magic children they care for is as heartfelt and political as readers could want. Make no mistake, ...Read More

The Lost Souls of Benzaiten, Kelly Murashige (Soho Teen 978-1-641-29574-1, $19.99, 304pp, hc) July 2024.

Debut author Kelly Murashige mixes a tender coming-of-age story with the unexpected antics of a bored Japanese goddess to give readers the highly original fantasy The Lost Souls of Ben­zaiten. The author’s clever plot and thoroughly en­gaging characters manage to make all too relatable the protagonist’s wish early on to “become one of ...Read More

Sleep Like Death, Kalynn Bayron (Bloomsbury 978-1-547-60976-5, $19.99, 368pp, hc) June 2024.

As she previously did with Cinderella, author Kalynn Bayron turned another classic on its head this year with Sleep Like Death, her smart and scary reimagining of Snow White. There’s a temptation when an author revisits a famous tale to assume they will simply modernize or dress it up a little, all of which can be ...Read More

Merciless Saviors, H.E. Edgmon (Wednesday 978-1-250-85363-9, $20.00, 336pp, hc) April 2024.

In Godly Heathens, the first book in H.E. Edgmon’s duology about American teens who are actually gods from a parallel world, readers met Gem Echols from small-town Georgia, who suffers from truly horrific dreams. Gem’s best friend is Enzo, a Brooklyn teen with whom they share a long-distance (never met in person but plenty of texting, talking ...Read More

A Tempest of Tea, Hafsah Faizal (Farrar Straus Giroux 978-0-374-38940-6, hc, 336 pp) February 2024. Cover by Valentina Remenar.

Hafsah Faizal has written a banger of a caper novel with A Tempest of Tea. Her tale of thieves, forgery, and political malfeasance set in the town of White Roaring takes readers on a ride with twists and turns they can never expect. Reminiscent of 19th-century London, White Roaring ...Read More

Remedial Magic, Melissa Marr (Bramble 978-1-250-88413-8, $17.99, tp, 336 pp) February 2024.

Melissa Marr’s Remedial Magic, first in a series, is a romance novel involving multiple characters engaged in tricky relationships. Ellie is a librarian in a small town who lives with her aunt and en­gages in the rather unusual self-described hobby of researching missing persons cases. These are not people who are murdered by spouses or involved ...Read More

Infinity Alchemist, Kacen Callender (Tor Teen 978-1-250-89025-2, $19.99, hc, 400pp) February 2024.

In the annals of magical instruction, Kacen Cal­lender’s Infinity Alchemist should definitely be in the running for containing the worst bunch of adults ever. Supposedly a place to learn the science of alchemy, Lancaster College is more of a place to plot and plan to take over the world. Ash wants in because it’s the only way ...Read More

The City of Stardust, Georgia Summers (Redhook 978-0-316-56148-8, $29.00, hc, 352 pp) January 2024.

The City of Stardust by Georgia Summers blends our recognizable world, mostly through the home of the Everly family in the English countryside, with the fictional city of Fidelis, a place of academics and magic that hides a horrific truth. (And that horror really is bad; we’re talking ritual-sacrifice-of-kidnapped-children kind of bad.) Violet Everly lives ...Read More

The Colliding Worlds of Mina Lee, Ellen Oh (Crown 978-0-593-12594-6, $19.99, hc, 295pp) January 2024. Cover by Audrey Mok.

In Ellen Oh’s The Colliding Worlds of Mina Lee, the title character has a big problem: She does not want to pursue the life her father has mapped out for her. High school senior Mina is an artist and desperate to follow in her deceased mother’s footsteps and attend ...Read More

The Frame-Up, Gwenda Bond (Del Rey 978-0-593-59773-6, $10.00, tp, 325pp) February 2024.

Author Gwenda Bond hit the NY Times best­seller list for the Stranger Things tie-in Suspicious Minds and prior to that authored several YA titles (including a trio about young Lois Lane). In recent years she has quietly been carving out a niche in magical romance and her latest, the art heist adventure The Frame-Up, fits nicely ...Read More