A++ #BookReview: A Trade of Blood by Robert Jackson Bennett

Posted on August 11, 2026August 8, 2026 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | A++ Reviews> book reviews

A Trade of Blood (Shadow of the Leviathan, #3) by Robert Jackson Bennett
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genres: epic fantasy, fantasy, fantasy mystery, urban fantasy
Series: Shadow of the Leviathan #3
Pages: 400
Published by Del Rey on August 4, 2026
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

An Ana and Din Mystery
Brilliant detective Ana Dolabra must prove a man's innocence to stop a civil war in the third book of the series that began with The Tainted Cup, named an Edgar, Hugo, and World Fantasy Award Finalist and one of the best books of the year (New York Times Book Review, NPR, Elle)—from the bestselling author of The Founders Trilogy.
In the canton of Sapirdad, two of the Empire’s most powerful families are moments away from going to war with each other, their hundreds of retainers gathered with swords drawn. If blood is spilt, the whole of the empire may be plunged into starvation and chaos.
To de-escalate matters, someone must do the impossible: prove that one family’s eldest son is innocent of a gruesome and unforgivable murder, despite the incontrovertible evidence against him.
It is with this undertaking that the great detective Ana Dolabra is tasked, her assistant Din at her side—and the two find themselves racing with great speed and little dignity to the scene.
As ever, the impossible proves little obstacle for the deadly combination of Ana’s intellect and Din’s keen eye, and mere hours after riding into the dusty town, Ana glimpses the greater pattern behind the crime. A deeper, subtler web of death is being woven in plain sight, by a mastermind with an ancient magical technology at his disposal.
But even Ana's uncanny insight is of little use when each new suspect she uncovers ends up dead--with each new killing calculated to bring tensions between the two rival clans past the boiling point. And as Din pursues their adversary through the canton's wild ranges, sprawling ranches, and reeking slaughterhouses, he finds his loyalties divided in unexpected ways.

My Review:

I’ve been waiting a year and a half for this book, and it absolutely was worth the wait. The first book in the Shadow of the Leviathan/Ana and Din Mystery series, The Tainted Cup, was such a fantastic combination of fantasy and mystery that it was nominated for Best Novel at both the Hugo Awards (SF and Fantasy) and the Edgar Awards (mystery). It won the Hugo – as it should have. (As I typed this in May 2026 the second book, A Drop of Corruption, was just nominated for this year’s Hugo Awards. The winners will be announced at WorldCon in Los Angeles later in August. I hope it wins. I hope so A LOT.)

This is a series that I’ve shoved at a lot of people over the past two-plus years, and this review is not going to be an exception. Expect some squeeing. Expect a LOT of squeeing.

Ana and Din are very much in the Holmes and Watson vein. I mean that in the broadest sense, that this detective duo ends up in the middle of the twistiest cases and doesn’t so much think outside of the box as think like there isn’t a box, has never been a box, won’t ever be a box, and that’s the way they want it.

Or that’s the way that Ana Dolabra wants it – and she generally gets what she wants. Because of her rank as an Immunis (a middle-ranking officer at least) of the Khanum military, because she’s an acknowledged genius when it comes to a whole lot of subjects, including solving potentially empire-shattering crimes before they actually do shatter the empire, because she’s been scientifically and alchemically enhanced to a degree that means she’s barely connected to the real world except when she wants to be, AND because she’s a stone cold bitch and isn’t afraid to let anyone and everyone know it as she runs roughshod over their petty concerns.

There may be other, darker reasons that most people are only instinctually aware of, but she already has more than enough going on to keep THOSE questions at bay. For the sake of whoever might ask, not her own.

Dinios Kol is her Watson, more or less. Mostly less (less like Watson, not less of an assistant). Ana may be less functional in a social and societal sense than Holmes – as well as frequently more drug-addled – but Din is her very able assistant, investigator, and more than occasional social smoother. He’s also young and learning and getting better at the job in every story. (Even in The Lion’s Tusk which is a brief but fascinating side story to the series)

The cases they get stuck with, or assigned to, or both, are usually either extremely convoluted or have potentially empire-shattering consequences or both. In this case, definitely both.

It all starts out looking extremely dull and exceedingly obvious. It looks like a ‘Romeo and Juliet’ story gone even wrong-er than the original – and that’s saying something to begin with. The two ‘big’ families in a prosperous, productive agricultural district have been feuding for decades. One breeds the cattle and the other grows the feed. They need each other. The town needs them both in order for the town to remain prosperous. But the families hate each other and always have even though both are rich as whatever this world’s equivalent of Croesus is.

Of course the daughter of one family and the son of the other fell in love. That’s the way the story goes. Of course they’ve been trysting in secret because that’s also the way the story goes. But the girl is dead, the boy obviously murdered her, and both families are baying for someone’s blood. It’s so damned obvious that SOMETHING ELSE must be going on.

And it’s that SOMETHING ELSE that Ana and Din have been tasked with figuring out. Because if this province drowns in blood, a whole lot of people around the empire are going to starve. That this little family feud has the potential to become the tip of the dangerous – and empire shattering – iceberg of civil war.

Unless the secrets that Ana and Din uncover beneath the surface of this crime, this feud, and this whole entire district turn out to be older and considerably more dangerous than that.

Escape Rating A++: Obviously, I loved this. I’ve loved the whole series so far and expect to love however many books it ultimately encompasses. I’ve loved fantasy mystery since way, way back with Randall Garrett’s Lord Darcy (also and more obviously a play on Sherlock Holmes), and I’ve never regretted a single book – only that there aren’t nearly enough of them. Hopefully, the success and popularity of THIS series will kick the fantasy mystery trend into a higher gear.

First, and this is important, I think you do need to read the first book, The Tainted Cup, first. Not just because it’s good – although THAT’S certainly true – but because this world is vast and deep and complex and is being built on layer by layer in each successive book. We’ve just barely scratched the surface of why the official series title is Shadow of the Leviathan but we keep getting just a bit more as it goes. Also Ana and Din’s relationship is changing and growing as Din gets more experience both in the world and as Ana’s assistant.

(There is no romance between them, there is no possibility of such a thing, it is absolutely not necessary AND it would be an abuse of power. Their mentor/student relationship turning into something closer to a partnership is the relationship and that’s the way it should be. I love a good romance as much as the next reader but the will they/won’t they dynamic of a romance is not required in every story – or in half as many as one gets shoved into anyway. I’ll get down off my soapbox now because it’s teetering just a bit.)

Like most good mysteries – which this is – Ana and Din tend to be skeptical about obvious solutions. Which is probably the opposite of real life detection but works well in fiction. Particularly in this world as there is just so much hidden under the surface in so many ways that easy solutions usually aren’t merely wrong but are outright bad – and that’s true here.

That it goes in a direction that would be impossible anyplace but here is not a surprise – even though the particular way it does go actually is. But what makes the STORY work is that the motives are ultimately human even though the means are somewhere between supernatural, alchemical and scientific. The reason they’re happening is very human and it’s the investigation of the humans that drives the story and keeps the reader compulsively following.

Or at least this reader felt compelled to stay up and follow the story to its ultimately fantastic, fantastical AND terrifying ending. The motives may have been human, the means may have been scientific and alchemical and psychological (this is a gaslamp world, those things can go together) but the implications were horrifying and scarring (and yes, I do mean scar and not scare, although that’s true too) in ways that I hope we’ll get to explore further in future books in the series.

Hopefully sooner rather than later!

A+ #BookReview: Villain by Natalie Zina Walschots

Posted on May 12, 2026May 10, 2026 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | A+ Reviews> book reviews

Villain (Hench, #2) by Natalie Zina Walschots
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: science fiction, superheroes, fantasy, urban fantasy
Series: Hench #2
Pages: 464
Published by William Morrow Books on May 19, 2026
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

The Boys meets Starter Villain and Assistant to the Villain in Natalie Zina Walschots’s electrifying, sharp, violent, and hilarious sequel to the highly acclaimed novel, Hench, in which the Auditor must confront the near-impossible in order to right the many wrongs in the superhuman industry…or cause more of them. She’s not picky.
Anna, better known to superheroes as the Auditor, has carved out a name for herself. Any hero unlucky enough to cross her path knows her potential and powers. Surely, success should taste she has an incredible job with lots of perks, and her boss will literally annihilate anyone who crosses her, and her greatest enemy, the former hero Supercollider, has been utterly defeated and literally ground to a pulp.
But Anna still has her sights set on a greater destroying the Draft, the organization that makes, trains, and manages the world’s most powerful superheroes. These “heroes” have shown time and time again that they do more harm than good, and now is the time to stop the damage at its source.
Yet all is not well for the Auditor and her fellow evildoers. Her employer, Leviathan—the world’s most feared supervillain—is not coping well with Supercollider’s defeat at someone else’s hands. Moreover, her unlikely ally and unexpected friend, Quantum Entanglement, has vanished without a trace, leaving Anna to examine all the ways they deceived each other. Tension and uncertainty fill the air, and fear that this moment of triumph is about to crumble looms over all of them.
Anna soon finds herself facing down an opponent unlike any she’s taken on before—not another superhero, but someone like her…someone much more the Draft’s Chief Marketing Officer. This isn’t a test of physical prowess, but ideas, and as the fight spirals deeper and deeper, with new foes popping up every day—she’ll need more than just her superpower—data research—to keep ascending through the supervillain ranks.
It’s guerrilla ad warfare, and the Auditor might have finally met her match.

My Review:

The story in Villain picks up immediately where Hench left off. I mean immediately, meaning that Villain is not a standalone and you need to start with Hench. And it’s SO worth it.

But the location is, surprisingly from the Auditor’s perspective, in a complete and absolute slough of despond at Leviathan HQ. Leviathan’s arch-nemesis Supercollider has been reduced to a puddle of goo – literally – but Leviathan isn’t the one responsible for reducing his greatest enemy to a living sludge-pile. That honor goes to Quantum Entanglement. Leviathan is standing on that fine line between hate and love – because Supercollider was his lifelong nemesis, they even trained together before Leviathan turned to the darkside – and he’s grieving and can’t either admit it or deal with it.

The Auditor doesn’t actually care who disposed of the bastard, just that he’s out of the superhero business. What Quantum Entanglement’s name implies is what she actually did. Supercollider may be technically alive – but he can’t be fixed. No one is certain he can even be killed because of the nature of his superpowers.

But they are absolutely certain he is out of the game – even if Superhero HQ, AKA the Draft – is lying through their collective teeth rather than let that particular cat out of the super-secret bag.

The Auditor wants to kick the Draft while they’re down. But Leviathan is emotionally AWOL. His staff and followers believe that he died in the showdown that took Supercollider out. The Auditor is one of the few that know the truth – and it’s just about killing her to keep the secret from her own people.

Her weaponization of spreadsheets has turned into a position of crisis management – and she pretty much hates it. Nearly as much as she loves her not-exactly-human boss who isn’t exactly talking to her at the moment.

The reader feels her frustration at the delay of action in both her professional AND personal lives. Not that they aren’t pretty much one and the same by this point in her career as Leviathan’s right hand hench.

Once the Draft’s lies about Supercollider start exploding in their faces, they kick the can right down the road to Leviathan’s court. They blame him for the death of their hero, a death the Draft itself caused as either a last-ditch medical attempt to unentangle the blob – or a mercy killing.

The Draft brings Leviathan back from the metaphorically dead – and it works. It works for their PR machine, but it also works for Leviathan’s psyche. He’s back, he’s in charge, and he’s eager to let the Auditor, HIS Auditor, take up the reins of being evil to her heart’s content, yet again.

Even as the Draft makes a “Hail, Mary” pass at converting the Auditor back to their side – along with any other hench they can manage to convince that good is better. Even if, or especially because, true hench know that the Superhero side isn’t better – it’s actually worse.

Made even more so by being such sanctimonious, hypocritical, twats about the vast amount of damage that they do – especially to their own.

Escape Rating A+: Villain is an utterly compelling story about crisis management and the truly villainous power of SPREADSHEETS!

It’s also, and more notably, the follow-up to the extremely awesome Hench, which was – and still is – “decadently delicious villainous competence porn” as I said in my review of Hench back in September 2020, OMG during the pandemic, and have been hoping for a sequel for FIVE AND A HALF YEARS. I kind of gave up hope.

Which doesn’t mean that I wasn’t thrilled to see this appear, and that I didn’t gobble the whole book down in a day. (Howsomever, if the final copy of this book is REALLY the estimated 368 pages of the estimate the type is going to be miniscule. My kindle eARC had over 7000 kindle locs – which means it was approximately twice that long. I STILL finished it in a day – admittedly a long one.) (I wrote this review several months ago. The page count has been revised UPWARDS by 100 pages. Which feels a whole lot more realistic. OTOH The Draft obfuscates and hyperbolizes JUST LIKE THIS.)

However, I’m over here still trying to tone my SQUEE down and it’s not working. #sorrynotsorry

Stories about the toxicity of the superhero concept have been done – I’m thinking particularly of the TV series The Boys. Stories based on what the real world costs of superheroes among us have also been done. Hench was one of those stories, along with the Assistant to the Villain series. (Hench predates Assistant by several years. BTW.) It’s kind of an obvious idea to play with if you think about the damage to NYC in Marvel’s Avengers and wonder who the hell paid to fix it? (If you wonder a LOT there’s plenty of fanfiction that plays with THAT concept)

In Hench, Anna, now “The Auditor” embodied that damage. Literally. Supercollider broke her body, mostly by accident, and both he and the Draft ignored her – and other victims just like her. Then Supercollider targeted her – for fun.

No wonder she turned completely to the ‘dark side’. At least supervillains own the things they do.

This second book digs deeper, in multiple directions. The Auditor’s superpowered data analysis uncovers more dirt about the Draft and the damage it deliberately does to the budding superheroes it, well, drafts. She exposes their dark underbelly – and it’s very dark indeed under there.

At the same time, she’s at a crossroads in her own life – one that the Draft is more than willing to exploit after all the data analysis they’ve done on her. She became a hench, because she wanted to fight against the superheroes using the only talent available to her, data analysis. But her nemesis is out of the game. Her revenge fueled work is done. If she continues from this point, then it’s because she wants to be evil.

(This reader found herself wondering about the nature of evil in this story, because it feels like the same “evil is a matter of perspective” scenario as the Queens of Villainy fantasy series. Leviathan – and by extension his Auditor – is called evil because he regularly thwarts the plans of the supposedly good superheroes of the Draft. But the side of good is objectively not truly good. If the superheroes are not good, does that mean that the supervillains are not evil? I’m still mulling this one over. A lot.)

The one thing she’s certain she does want is Leviathan himself. There’s a romance there that I’m not sure is a good thing for the Auditor and not just because it reminds me a LOT of the very unequal power balance of the romance in But Not Too Bold – which was a borderline horror story. The physical power imbalance between Leviathan and the Auditor is inescapable, but the way that he exploits the many other facets of the power he has over her – he’s her lover and her boss, and because the perks of her job include her on-site luxury apartment he’s her landlord as well. If she gets fired, if she displeases him, she’s jobless, homeless and likely dead. But the icing on this particular squicky cake is that he has performed body modifications to her that give him the ability to see out of her eyes and hear from her ears 24/7 without her consent. She can’t even tell when he’s watching.

They do manage to negotiate a less inequitable relationship, but there was a lot of squicky non-consensual stuff going on for a while and I’m not sure whether the story as a whole was helped or hindered by it. It’s my mixed feelings on this particular score that made this an A+ review instead of an A++ review as Hench was.

Because as much as I worried over Anna’s situation, and as icky as she – and I – felt about Leviathan’s potential for constant surveillance and his overwhelming possessiveness and desire for control, I was still powerfully sucked into this story and could not tear myself away. Not that I tried terribly hard.

I think there is plenty more story in store for the Auditor. Now that she’s fully invested in being a Villain, and the superheroes and their Draft are on the ropes yet again, it’s time for her to climb the ranks of supervillain alongside Leviathan. Unless she decides to forge her own path – or it gets forged FOR her. Either way, I hope we see her again – at the top of her game – in a future book in this series. Because this one was definitely worth the wait!

#BookReview: For Better or Murder by Simon R. Green

Posted on May 4, 2026May 3, 2026 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B- Reviews> book reviews

For Better or Murder (A Holy Terrors Mystery, 4) by Simon R. Green
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genres: horror, mystery, paranormal, urban fantasy
Series: Holy Terrors #4
Pages: 192
Published by Severn House on May 5, 2026
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

It’s wedding season with a spooky twist! The Holy Terrors are trying to tie the knot while solving a ghostly murder in the latest witty, creeptastic paranormal mystery from
New York Times
bestselling British fantasy author Simon R. Green.
There are those who say seagulls cry over the sins of mankind. And that if we could only get our act together, they could stop crying …
Holy Terrors dream team—actress Diana Hunt and her partner in crime (solving) young bishop Alistair Kincaid—are getting married! The plan is to hold a small ceremony with just some family and friends at a charming and secluded hotel in Cornwall. But in true Holy Terrors fashion, the Pale Rider hotel carries the legend of a killer ghost rider and his skeleton horse, which sets the perfect tone for a cheerful occasion!
Trying to make the best out of the stormy weekend and seemingly haunted place, spirits fall even lower when one of the guests is found murdered in the hallway. Did the legendary pale rider strike again or is there something more sinister going on—and will Diana and Alistair finally have the chance to say yes?
The “hugely entertaining” (
Booklist
) Holy Terrors Mysteries are perfect for fans of Simon R. Green’s urban fantasy novels, authors Jim Butcher, Terry Pratchett and Ben Aaronovitch, as well as those who enjoy
American Horror Story
,
The X-Files
, and murder mysteries with a supernatural twist.

My Review:

It feels like this latest book in the Holy Terrors series begins at the end. The Bishop and the Actress, Bishop Alistair Kincaid and actress Diana Hunt, are about to tie the knot. At the end of Which Witch? (the previous book in the series) the Bishop popped the question and the Actress said yes. THE question. They’re getting married.

Which is not nearly as crazy an idea as it would have been if this story had been set back in the early 1900s when that catchphrase was both suggestive AND popular. (The original Saint series by Leslie Charteris used that phrase A LOT and always with the double entendre firmly evident – double entendre intended.)

Alistair and Diana met in the first book, The Holy Terrors, and were dubbed by the press as “The Holy Terrors”, when they filmed a spooky reality TV show that had much too much fake spookiness – along with entirely too many real murders. That first book set up the whole series – and the relationship between Alistair and Diana.

A relationship that, up until AFTER the fade to black at the end of this latest story, hasn’t been nearly as salacious as Diana would like it to be. And it will be once they manage to FINALLY tie that marital knot.

But it’s never that simple when the Holy Terrors are involved. First, there’s the press. Currently, they are media darlings, which has given Diana’s acting career a serious boost. But she’s not interested in the ‘paps’ running or ruining her wedding. So they’ve chosen a venue as far from the madding crowd as they can manage. A remote inn so close to the end of Cornwall that if it were any further out it would fall into the Atlantic Ocean.

Of course, the place is haunted. Or so the proprietors claim. Of course the atmosphere is beyond spooky and Mother Nature seems determined to whip the dramatic pauses and power failures up to eleven. Of course, the wedding party is a motley crew filled with hidden agendas and open resentments.

So when the bodies start dropping, neither Alistair, Diana OR the reader are surprised. But it is still fun to watch Alistair take all of the atmospheric spooky stage setting apart with his bare hands – and his logical mind – one more time.

Escape Rating B-: This reads like it could be the final book in the Holy Terrors series. And that’s probably for the best. (Yes, I know I need to explain that.)

I read this author for the snarkitude. He has always had a great line in dry, wry, intelligent banter, and that’s still true. So I’m not sorry I read this at all.

That being said, the plot is utterly predictable. It’s not just that every story in this series hangs off the same scaffolding, it’s that it’s the same scaffolding as one of the author’s other recent series, the Ishmael Jones series.

The investigators (Alistair and Diana, Ishmael and Penny) find themselves in a situation that is presented as being paranormal or supernatural in origin. Or, at least, someone tries to fool them into thinking it is. But neither Alistair nor Ishmael are fooled – Alistair out of faith and Ismael out of experience. The story is in taking the illusion apart as the bodies drop from human causes out of human motivations.

Ishmael Jones series actually works a little better because there’s an SFnal element in Ishmael’s background that allows some of the ends to be supernatural or extra-terrestrial and have that work. OTOH, Ishmael and Penny can’t really reach a happy ending – for other factors in Ishmael’s origin – but Alistair and Diana can. And quite possibly do at the end of THIS book.

So this turned out to be fun, but only because I was already invested in the series. That fun relies on prior knowledge of the series – while the series as a whole hasn’t been all that compared to the author’s earlier works like Nightside and The Secret Histories.

I also had the feeling, particularly with this last book, that this whole thing relies more than a bit on some particularly British humorous stock characters that I just didn’t have the cultural background for. Or something like that. I had this constant sense that I was just missing some nuance around the edges but didn’t know what it was precisely enough to go hunting for it.

Your reading mileage may vary.

A- #BookReview: I Choose the Bear by Shiloh Walker

Posted on April 28, 2026April 28, 2026 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | A- Reviews> book reviews

I Choose the Bear by Shiloh Walker
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: ebook
Genres: paranormal romance, urban fantasy
Pages: 423
Published by Shiloh Walker Inc. on April 28, 2026
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

Ivy thought she'd found one of the good ones, a nice guy who respected her wishes, the guy all of her friends liked...and then they head to his family's lake house for a night to watch for an expected meteor shower. But Neill had his own plans in mind and when Ivy said no, he didn't like it.

Enter the bear.

Jonah, on a hiking trip with his best friend, Liam, after the unexpected death of the clan's Alpha, and Jonah's grandfather, is enjoying the last few hours of freedom he'll know for some time. He's known for a long time he'll be stepping into his grandfather's shoes and with the countdown ticking away, he relishes the peace and quiet. But then it's shattered by the shouts of an angry, frightened woman. Both Liam and Jonah take off running to investigate.

Just as they reach the edge of the property, the woman shouts, "You're the reason why women choose the bear, Neill."

Now...Jonah abides by the laws governing supernaturals. He doesn't reveal himself to be a shapeshifter. But walking out there in his bear skin isn't really revealing himself. And predators deserve to be frightened, don't they?

And when he sees Ivy...his whole world is upended.

Now isn't the time for him to fall in love. He has a clan to care for, challenges to hold off.

But love doesn't believe in being convenient and Jonah and Ivy on are a collision course. Will she choose the bear...and will his bear choose her?

My Review:

I’m pretty sure that when women say they’d prefer to be alone in the woods with a bear rather than a man, they don’t expect the bear to shapeshift into one. On the other hand, they’d prefer that men didn’t shift into metaphorical bears – but that happens so damn often that it’s not even a surprise when they do. A disappointment, sure. But a surprise, not so much. At least the real bear is honest about their intentions.

And so is bear shifter Jonas Andersson, even if he can’t reveal his true nature when he rescues Ivy Cousins from the guy she thought was the perfect boyfriend. Right up until said douchecanoe tried to maul her during what was supposed to be a nighttime drive to view the Perseid meteor shower. They’d been dating for five weeks, and Neill Brady had seemed better than okay. Listening to her, looking at her face instead of her rather impressive rack, interested in what she was thinking and not just her body. At least until he had her alone where he thought there’d be no one to hear her yell.

He didn’t expect her to stand up for herself. He didn’t expect her to fight him off. He certainly didn’t expect a BEAR to lumber to her rescue.

She chose the bear. She said it, out loud, where Jonas could hear her. And he was more than willing to make that choice the best decision she’d ever made. At least, once he figured out a way to tell her, not just that HE was the bear, but that he was THE bear, the mayor of the village of Bear Creek and the Alpha bear for the entire Mahoosuc den.

And that she was his mate. If he could get over his own fears about loving a short-lived human. If she could get past his initial deception. AND if they can manage to survive the separate, but equally deadly, threats that are headed straight for them both.

Escape Rating A-: I initially picked this book for its title. Because I’d pick the bear over some random guy who could go from zero to asshole in 30 seconds too. Ivy’s suddenly ex boyfriend had already performed that maneuver – making Ivy’s reasoning entirely clear and utterly justified. Because it happens all too often and all too easily in real life.

The story was a hoot and a half. A delightful reading pick-me-up. The romance is fun and flirty and takes a bit of its own sweet time in getting to the good parts in all the best ways, but what made the story so charming was the, well, charming, set up. (It also reminded me a bit of Anne Bishop’s World of the Others, also in the best ways – and with the underlying sense of humor.)

The village was also delightfully cozy in the way that the entire village is all in on matchmaking Jonas and Ivy, the way that the bear cubs are trying to be on their best behavior – and failing adorably – and the way that everyone is all in on both protecting Ivy’s safety AND helping her do her job. Which is promoting the artisans and craftworkers who are part of the Mahoosuc den and would love more outlets for their work.

It’s just a fun place and I hope this is the beginning of a series because I really want to go back!

At the same time, and of course, there has to be a crisis to spark the dramatic tension. (There’s already plenty of UST and romantic tension. That part was definitely covered – and happily uncovered!)

Both Jonas AND Ivy are facing HUGE existential crises that are threats to their lives. At the same time. Ivy’s bitter ex is stalking her with murderous intent. Meanwhile Jonas’s dad is planning to challenge him as Alpha. The challenge could be legit but dad is the type to bring a gun to a knife fight. Or to poison an opponent before a challenge. He fights dirty which is why he was passed over for Alpha in the first place.

Ivy is also questioning her identity, and those questions have become louder and more insistent since she came to Bear Creek. There’s a HUGE secret in her past hidden inside her memories, and it’s breaking free.

Both of their worlds have the potential to come crashing down. AND they’re two-steps-forward, one-step-back on a relationship that already has fundamental issues because shifters live for centuries and humans just plain don’t.

It’s a LOT. It all crashes down on them at the same time and makes a fundamental change to Ivy’s nature while opening up as many of Pandora’s Boxes as it answers questions. I loved Bear Creek and the bears. I enjoyed the way their romance worked out, the way they worked through their personal issues and conflicts to make a solid partnership.

The ending was a bit like an old Wild West gunfight at the center of town. Or something climactic and explosive with bodies on the ground. At least, the right bodies, but still. The new stuff Ivy will have to deal with is truly epic. She’s not who or what she thought she was and that’s going to be messing with her for a long time after the last page.

A part of me LOVED the slam-bang ending, and a part of me wished a bit of the fire had been saved for a future story – hoping that there is one – because this felt like a bit of a deus ex machina not totally earned climax – although the romantic HEA certainly was.

This book certainly carried me the rest of the way out of last week’s reading slump, so I’m VERY happy I chose the bear. I’d love to go back and choose another bear – or another kind of shifter – in a return visit to Bear Creek. Fingers crossed!

(Reviewer’s Note: The blurb refers to “Jonah” but the text I have in hand calls him “Jonas”. Admittedly, I have an eARC so I don’t know which is correct. I’d appreciate it if someone with a print copy would let me know. Thanks!)

#AudioBookReview: Lightning Runes by Harry Turtledove

Posted on April 15, 2026April 15, 2026 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B Reviews> book reviews

Lightning Runes (City of Shadows, 2) by Harry Turtledove
Narrator: Paul Boehmer
Format: audiobook, eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss, supplied by publisher via Libro.fm
Formats available: hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genres: alternate history, fantasy, paranormal, urban fantasy
Series: City of Shadows #2
Pages: 354
Length: 13 hours and 8 minutes
Published by Caezik SF & Fantasy, Tantor Media on April 16, 2026
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Hardboiled Noir meets Urban Fantasy in a post-WWII Los Angeles where vampires, zombies, and demons are part of the social fabric.

Magic is just another way to get killed in the City of Angels.

Los Angeles, 1940s. The war is over, but the shadows are growing teeth. In this gritty Historical Urban Fantasy, detective work requires more than a badge and a .38. It requires an understanding of the runes that thrum beneath the pavement.

It started with a knock on the door. It usually does. Now there’s a body, a missing musician, and a trail of magic that smells like ozone and bad luck. The LAPD is out of its depth. The "square" world is waking up to a reality they aren't prepared to handle.

My Review:

I picked this up because I fell hard for the first book in the series, Twice as Dead and was hoping for more of the same. That first book managed to combine the hard-boiled, noir-ish sensibilities of down-on-their-luck detectives like Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe and Easy Rawlins with the paranormal world of Dan Shambles into an urban fantasy that mixed the best of the ‘old skool’ of that genre with a bit of paranormal romance and the kind of thoroughgoing alternate world building that the author is famous for.

The City of Shadows that the series is set in is an alternate version of Los Angeles in a slightly skewed version of our own world. A world where all the creatures that go bump in the night – wizards, vampires, werewolves, ghosts and zombies, among others, are a known and sorta/kinda accepted part of society. About as well accepted as any other minority population, but also known to be just as real even if just as looked down upon as any other such group.

We never do find out whether the vampires, etc., came out of the coffin one relatively recent dark night or whether their existence has been accepted all along. We are, however, in a 1940s post-World War II era where the powers lined up more or less the same way but under different names – and with the supernatural fighting on both sides.

Just as in the first book, P.I. Jack Mitchell has several cases on his desk that he’s all too afraid are going to turn out to be one big, nasty mess. And he’s right. The vampire whose Nazi views and aggressive behavior drawing the wrong kind of attention to Vampire Village, the werewolf stalking the streets on full moon nights, the mob involvement in the record business AND the blackmail of the queer, black owners of the best jazz club in town shouldn’t have anything to do with each other. But Jack’s luck doesn’t work that way.

He knows they’ll be connected, if only to make his life that much more difficult and in that much more peril. All he has to do is keep his own skin in one piece long enough to unwind all the tangled threads of the case before they can tie him down or burn him out – again – and this time for good.

Escape Rating B: The cover of Lightning Runes sums up my mixed feelings a whole lot better than I ever expected. First, vampire Dora Urban wouldn’t be caught alive, unalive or dead in that dress or with that ridiculous expression on her face. Even after centuries – or more – as a vampire she’s still too much of an aristocrat for either. Meanwhile, there’s something wrong, like uncanny valley wrong or human bodies don’t quite work that way wrong, with the man standing in for Jack Mitchell. The story was like that too for me, a sense of ‘almost but not quite’ right – or at least not quite as good as the first book.

I really wanted to love this one because Twice as Dead was just so good. Parts of this WERE good. The cases were fascinating, the way that they came together took dogged investigation and a bit of luck and the way that Jack teased around all the edges of everything until the pieces started coming together was compelling. The way that Jack gathered more friends around him than he ever thought he’d have to get the job done was terrific.

But, and it’s a fairly big but, the pace slowed down every single time that Jack either got lost in his memories or got pulled down inside his own head in his totally righteous resentment of the way that the US of his 1940s – and ours – did not live up to the image it had of itself as the land of the free, the home of the brave, where all men are created equal.

Because he knows first-hand it’s not true. Jack is mixed-race, able to ‘pass’ in either direction. He sees the way the corrupt LAPD pull over men just a shade darker than himself for beatdowns in plain sight that people just pretend isn’t happening right before their eyes. He knows it could be him.

In the wake of their version of World War II, Jack still gets nightmares about his service during the war, even as he’s thinking about where he would have ended up if he hadn’t passed and wondering whether it would have been safer AND less scarring to be with the black troops or whether he’d just have a different set of scars.

While the many Jews in his neighborhood, and among his friends, remind him that there are people who have it WAY worse than he ever did – and that it’s all wrong and doesn’t look like it’s going to get righted anytime soon – if at all.

All of the above is, well, real. Very real. And it’s equally realistic that Jack thinks about all of it, gets reminded of the war all too often because he’s still fighting it in his head, hates the new ‘restricted’ neighborhoods – restricted to white people only, no nonwhites, no Jews allowed in spite of the laws against such restrictions – and seethes about all of it. That the villain this time around is his world’s equivalent of an SS officer who seems to be hell-bent on resurrecting his ‘Leader’s’ plans and policies in the US – if not the actual bastard himself – continuously pokes Mitchell’s wounds and resentments throughout the entire story.

The issue, as far as the book is concerned, is that it pulls the reader out of the story every time Jack goes down into these dark trenches, and he does it a LOT. I both sympathized and empathized with him every single time, but it either happened too often or went too deep and too far and too much.

Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade in ‘The Maltese Falcon’

After all of Jack’s internal angst, the ending was a bit anticlimactic – and a bit of a deus ex machina. It was also a lot of fun, a popping of a huge balloon of tense anticipation with the lolloping of a ginormous shaggy dog. But as fun and funny as it was while it was happening, it was almost forgettable after the dark depths of the case itself. Your reading mileage may vary.

Or listening mileage, as the story lends itself well to audio with its first-person protagonist, very much in the Sam Spade/Philip Marlowe talking to himself and breaking the fourth wall kind of way. That being said, I kept waffling between thinking that Jack Mitchell didn’t sound as much like Spade or Marlowe as he thought he did or that the narrator didn’t sound quite as much like portrayals of Spade or Marlowe as I thought he ought to have. Your listening mileage may seriously vary on that one, especially as it may just be that Humphrey Bogart cast such a long, gravelly shadow as Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon that it’s STILL impossible to shake.

In the end, I have to say that I liked this rather than loved it the way I did Twice as Dead. But I liked it more than enough to want to see it continue. I also need to find out how Jack’s office cats, Old Man Mose and Mehitabel are doing – and what they’re doing to destroy Jack’s office even more!

A+ #AudioBookReview: Junkyard Riders by Faith Hunter

Posted on January 30, 2026January 29, 2026 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | A+ Reviews> audio reviews> audiobooks> book reviews

Junkyard Riders (Junkyard Cats #5) by Faith Hunter
Narrator: Khristine Hvam
Format: audiobook, ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon, purchased from Audible
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: dystopian, post apocalyptic, urban fantasy
Series: Shining Smith #5
Pages: 163
Length: 4 hours and 46 minutes
Published by Audible Studios, Lore Seekers Press on January 20, 2026
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo
Goodreads

Shining Smith returns, taking on the “Dark Riders,” a paramilitary group motorcycle gang searching for Gov. political power, military connections, and alien tech. The Dark Riders are closing in on Shining’s secrets and, while she would rather nest in her new roadhouse, Shining must protect her own, once again taking the battle to the enemy.
Unfortunately, CAIT, the original AI on the junkyard’s crashed spaceship, has its own agenda buried in the ship’s code and choses this time to implement it. There is nothing Shining can do to stop it, except what she does best – plot an offensive, get her people in place, and hope Jolene can outsmart the virtual alter ego.
But the cataclysmic snowstorm crashing in with all the power and subtlety of Mateo in his WarBot suit could be the end of them all.

My Review:

There’s a major snowstorm crashing down on Shining’s head in this one – and bloody damn (as Shining herself would put it – I didn’t need the up-close-and-personal reminder of what’s headed my way in real life as it headed towards hers in brilliantly realized fiction.

I’m still here for the cats, six years and four books after the first utterly terrific book in this series, Junkyard Cats. Because Shining and her allies, the more-or-less humans AND the self-proclaimed “destructions of cats” have just gotten bigger and more badass as the series has evolved.

And so have their enemies.

In this fifth entry in the series, the hard-won more-or-less peace that Shining has sacrificed so much blood for, particularly in the previous book, Junkyard Roadhouse, has been disturbed by the advent of an unnamed motorcycle gang that Shining calls the “Dark Riders”. She’s sure they have a name, she just doesn’t know what it is – yet. She just knows that these “Dark Riders” are in the sex trafficking business and don’t care who they have to kill in order to get their “stock” or how willing they might be to “serve”. The Dark Riders are threatening territory that is under the protection of Shining and/or her allies, and have now turned their sights on the Junkyard Roadhouse. Not directly, not yet, but attempting to pick off some of their more remote trading partners.

Which Shining cannot allow, both as the threat to her independence that it definitely is, and because some of her own people are on site. And mostly because she promised protection so now she’s duty bound to deliver it.

That her enemy is a whole lot bigger and more powerful than even rival queen Clarice Warhammer in Junkyard War just means that Shining is going to need a lot more allies to help take them down. Even if this time around she’s putting herself directly against the Gov and their military forces.

Especially if it’s the Gov and their military. She’ll just have to be a bit sneakier about how she brings them down. Or out. Or into the bright, shining light of exposure.

Even if bringing down a bigger and more powerful – and connected – foe is a good deed that is guaranteed not to go unpunished. That’s a problem for ‘later’ Shining, if she survives this time around. Which she bloody damn WILL.

Escape Rating A+: I’ve adored this series from that very first book, Junkyard Cats, and I haven’t changed my mind one bit as the series has continued. In fact, I think they’ve gotten better as they’ve gone along. They’ve certainly gotten bigger – not necessarily in length but in scope. With each book we see more of how this effed up future is, well, effed up. And it’s FUBAR, glorious and terrible all at the same time.

In my personal opinion, it’s also better in audio, but that’s a shade of better that’s really, really close. Narrator Kristine Hvam remains the perfect voice of Shining, she’s gritty and snarky, self-deprecating and over-confident, desperate and determined, always, always picking herself up off the ground to DEAL WITH IT whatever IT might be.

She makes hard decisions, lives with the even harder consequences, and Hvam’s voice perfectly captures Shining’s first-person, internal voice every step of the way. The one problem I have with the narration being just so damn good is that now that the ebooks are released simultaneously with the audio, I’m caught very sharply on the horns of the dilemma of whether I want to hear Shining’s voice more than I’m desperate to find out what happened.

It’s a bloody damn hard call every time. But that’s Shining Smith all over.

This entry in the series reads like the set up for the next phase of Shining’s ‘adventures’ – to use that term very loosely. Alternatively, it’s the opening campaign in Shining’s next war. Because she is at war. In the first three books (Junkyard Cats, Junkyard Bargain, Junkyard War), she was at war with rival queen Clarice Warhammer. The previous book, Junkyard Roadhouse, represented a consolidation of the gains and alliances Shining gathered for and as a result of Warhammer’s destruction.

Those gains included a lot of intel on bad actors in what passes for the US government in this post-apocalyptic dystopia, and that intel has led her to a bigger, better equipped enemy. Taking on the Gov, even in the clandestine fashion she does in this story, is going to take more than one book and a whole lot more firepower. Those Dark Riders are the tip of an iceberg that goes a lot deeper and further than even Shining and her tendency to imagine worst-case scenarios had imagined.

On the surface, Junkyard Riders is another fantastic Shining Smith adventure, for multiple definitions of the word ‘adventure’. It’s also the latest chapter in an ongoing saga that gets bigger as it goes – even though the length of the individual entries is still relatively short. On my third hand (and some of Shining’s allies actually have such a thing), this story represents both an expansion and an escalation in the best ‘Old Skool’ urban fantasy tradition. At the end of every story, Shining takes her bow with more resources, more weapons, more POWER than she had at the beginning. Which forces her next enemy to match and exceed her in order to have a shot at taking her down.

This entry in the series was fantastic AND did a fantastic job of setting up the next book. Hopefully this time next year if not, fingers crossed, just a bit sooner. Because I’m already there for it.

One final note because I can’t resist. A ‘destruction of cats’ is a collective noun for a group of wild and/or feral cats. The junkyard’s cats are not exactly feral, but they certainly are both wild AND destructive. Tufts, the queen of the junkyard’s cats, took that name for her clowder HERSELF. Because of course she did. And her Destruction has certainly earned the moniker. I can’t wait to see how THAT works out in the books to come. Because I’ve always been all in on this series for the cats. And they get more badass every book – right along with Shining Smith herself.

A- #AudioBookReview: Through Gates of Garnet and Gold by Seanan McGuire

Posted on January 23, 2026January 23, 2026 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | A- Reviews> audio reviews> audiobooks> book reviews

Through Gates of Garnet and Gold (Wayward Children, #11) by Seanan McGuire
Narrator: Cynthia Hopkins
Format: audiobook, eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss, supplied by publisher via Libro.fm
Formats available: hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genres: fantasy, portal fantasy, urban fantasy, young adult
Series: Wayward Children #11
Pages: 149
Length: 4 hours and 33 minutes
Published by Macmillan Audio, Tordotcom on January 6, 2026
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

A fan-favorite character returns in this action-packed instalment of the Hugo Award-winning Wayward Children series.
After Nancy was cast out of the Halls of the Dead and forced to enroll at Eleanor West's School for Wayward Children, she never believed she'd find her door again, and when she did, she didn't look back. She disappeared from the school to resume her place in the Halls, never intending to return.
Years have passed. A darkness has descended on the Halls, and the living statues who populate them are dying at the hands of the already dead. The Lord and Lady who rule the land are helpless to stop the slaughter, forcing Nancy to leave the Halls again, this time on purpose, as she attempts to seek much-needed help from her former schoolmates.
But who would volunteer to quest in a world where the dead roam freely?
And why are the dead so intent on adding to their number?

My Review:

Whenever I think of the Wayward Children series, I imagine of the chase scene from Monsters, Inc. that takes place in the vast, cavernous space where all the doors are stored. I want to see a place just like that in this series – but I KNOW that the doors that these wayward children go through, sometimes back through, and very occasionally stride through one more time – or even more – aren’t stored that way.

Because the doors in this series have way more sentience of their own than that.

Nancy’s story turns out to be the rarest of all. Once upon a time she left our world for the stillness of the Halls of the Dead, stumbled back through her door to this world in Every Heart A Doorway, but found her door again at the end of that story and returned to the place her heart called home – a life of quiet, still, contemplation in the Halls of the Dead.

At least until the hungry dead start eating her friends, the other living statues, and the Lady of the Dead uses her powers to shove Nancy back through the doors to this world, specifically back to the one place where she hopes that Nancy can find help for whatever has gone wrong in the Halls.

That door leads to Nancy’s old room at Miss West’s School – and it is a place where Nancy can indeed find help and succor. Even though the provision of that help is certain to break Miss West’s one supposedly hard and fast rule – “NO QUESTS”

Of course there will be a quest to save the place their friend’s heart calls home. All their hearts are already in it. Because, even though they don’t know it yet, that this particular quest was theirs all along.

Escape Rating A-: This series opened with Nancy’s story in Every Heart A Doorway, and it feels right and fitting that the story return to Nancy yet again. Not for an ending – or at least I surely hope not – but for a bit of a catch-up. A catch-up with where and how Nancy is that ends on a surprisingly open note because Nancy’s story is clearly not over. So hopefully the series isn’t either.

I listened to this entry in the series, and the narration was lovely. The narrators in this series switch depending on which of the children is the focus and whether their world is a ‘logic world’ or a ‘nonsense world. Cynthia Hopkins voiced Nancy’s first story, Every Heart A Doorway, and also voiced another logic world story in the series, In an Absent Dream. She did a particularly excellent job with Nancy’s voice and with all of the voices this time around, even nonsense-oriented Sumi as she reacts, lampshades and occasionally outright subverts the norms of this world that is antithetical to her very nature.

Then again, sometimes they need it.

Nancy is one of the long-standing, frequently appearing, characters in this series, so it’s not surprising that her – and everyone’s – equally long-standing nemesis appears in this story as well. After all, this is a universe where in the right worlds behind the right doors, the dead can rise again.

Which at first seems to be the story here. What made that story interesting, at first, was that the dead who are the foundation of the Halls of the Dead do, in fact, have cause to rise. They have been neglected and ignored if not outright mistreated. The Lord of the Dead has retreated to his private chambers and has begun to think of himself as a god and not merely the genius loci of this particular world.

What – or who – has stirred the dead up so destructively is not of his world, it’s of ours. And it’s up to someone – or several someones – to help lay that evil to rest yet again. Because the children have met this particular hungry dead before – and quite likely will again because they are unlikely to rest for long.

The danger of the quest is real, because the dead are very, very hungry AND they have a grudge. Well, one of them does. So there’s a lot of chasing and racing and pounding hearts and feet in a place that has formerly known only stillness.

But the part that lingers of this story isn’t the quest or even the enemy they face – not that their enemy isn’t likely to linger, but that’s what this particular enemy has become infamous for. It’s not new although it does keep everyone on the edge of their toes every step of the way.

What lingers is Nancy’s insight into someone who has been both a hero and a figure of worship and reverence to her. She thought she was sure that the Halls where where she belonged. Her discovery that her hero isn’t remotely the hero she thought he was, that the Lord of the Dead has feet of clay up to his knees, might just have the power to change her mind.

Or at least make her much, much less sure. And that’s what the reader, and Nancy, are left with at the end. The possibility of change, and the recognition that her heart might call her elsewhere. Perhaps even back to Miss West’s, where a piece of her heart has been waiting for her all along.

I can’t wait for the next (very much hoped for) entry in this series, so that I can find out what happens next!

A- #BookReview: Sorcerous Plates by Tao Wong

Posted on January 8, 2026January 7, 2026 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | A- Reviews> book reviews

Sorcerous Plates (Hidden Dishes Book 4) by Tao Wong
Format: ebook
Source: purchased from Amazon
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: cozy fantasy, foodie fiction, urban fantasy
Series: Hidden Dishes #4
Pages: 174
Published by Starlit Publishing on January 1, 2026
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

Even magical chefs have to eat...
For once, Mo Meng isn’t the one behind the counter. After years of serving dishes at the Nameless Restaurant, he’s taking a rare day off. His destination? The soft launch of a new restaurant, where he’s been invited to sample their debut menu.
At least, that was the plan. But while he might have left his restaurant behind, its patrons and their problems are a little harder to lose.
Sorcerous Plates is the fourth standalone novella in the cozy cooking fantasy series Hidden Dishes.Read this if you
🍲 Cozy, lighthearted fantasy🥢 A hidden restaurant in the heart of the city🍲 A reclusive chef with a secret touch🥢 Magical realism & gentle enchantments🍲 Heartwarming stories of friendship and hope🥢 Malaysian flavours, rich atmosphere, unforgettable meals🍲 Perfect for fans of warm, slice-of-life fantasy
From the bestselling author of The System Apocalypse and A Thousand Li comes Sorcerous Plates, a cozy cooking fantasy novella perfect for fans of Travis Baldree's Legends & Lattes and Junpei Inuzuka's Restaurant to Another World.

My Review:

The “sorcerous plates” in this fourth entry in the delicious Hidden Dishes series do not, for once, come from the kitchen of Mo Meng, the seemingly immortal mage who owns both the restaurant and chef’s hat at his hole-in-the-wall Toronto restaurant. A restaurant that is called “The Nameless Restaurant” because he never bothered, and can’t BE bothered, to name it.

He intended the restaurant as his “retirement” – or at least this particular phase of it, but his culinary bolt hole has turned into a foodie’s paradise, at least for every foodie in the Toronto area who can manage to find it.

The ordinary human customers tend not to return – the food may be divine but the ambiance is atrocious while the service is run off its feet. But for his intended clientele, the magic users and outright magical beings who live in the area, it’s a place where they can BE a bit more like themselves even if they can’t exactly show themselves, and where they can talk in safety about the issues that concern their hidden community.

Like the fact that magic is on the upswing and that their hidden community causes a bit more mayhem and is a bit less hidden every day.

The increase in business has been GREAT for the restaurant’s entirely human front-end manager, Kelly, even as the chef himself grumbles that it’s too crowded, that it’s too much trouble to train an assistant in the kitchen and that using too much magic to prepare the food is absolutely NOT the point of having the restaurant in the first place.

Because the hidden world is becoming more exposed, and magic seems to be returning with potentially chaotic consequences, this story takes place, not at the Nameless Restaurant, but at an invitation-only private event marking the pre-opening of a brand new Michelin Star restaurant in Toronto. Mo Meng has received an invitation because the chef running the much-anticipated new eatery is a former protégé of Mo Meng himself.

This story begins with an immortal mage, an old vampire, a chaotic jinn’s mage-assistant and the Nameless Restaurant’s entirely human front-of-house manager walking, not into a bar – because that would be a terrible joke – but into what food critics are claiming will be the latest Michelin Star restaurant in the city. As soon as all the critics and influencers post their experience on social media.

Under the cover of plates quietly clattering, silverware discreetly clanking, and glassware carefully clinking, Chef Mo Meng, Marilyn the vampire, Henry the jinn’s assistant and Kelly the wait staff have a quiet but far ranging conversation about the rise of upheaval in the hidden world, as well as their collective worries about the direction the situation will take from there.

That each chapter, and each intriguing bite of that conversation is conducted to the accompaniment by and description of each bite of each and every delicious course in an excellent meal turns this story into multiple levels of temptation.

Readers will wish they had their own seat at that table, to listen in on a fascinating explanation and exploration of the hidden world – and especially to have the opportunity to get their own fork into every dish!

Escape Rating A-: I love this series, and it’s especially good in audio, but I honestly didn’t have the patience to wait this time around. This was the book I wanted to read, and I wanted to read it as soon as it downloaded on New Year’s Day. This book, with its delicious descriptions and its delightful anticipation of the chaos and delights yet to come for the hidden world, felt like a perfect metaphor and was just simply a great story to start the year.

What’s surprising about this story is that it is told almost entirely in conversation. Not that the thoughts of the individual diners, particularly Mo Meng and Kelly, aren’t included, especially Kelly’s thoughts about how delicious everything is to a degree that’s more than enough to make the reader’s mouth water while sharing her anticipation and satisfaction. But that’s all part of the tease.

The movement of the story – ironic in a way because they are all sitting down most of the time – is in what they say to each other – and what they don’t say. We learn a lot about the hidden world (not enough, ever, but more) in the conversation between Mo Meng, Marilyn, and Henry, and we’re just as fascinated as Kelly.

There’s also an opportunity for Kelly to display some typically human perspectives and prejudices, and it’s thought-provoking to listen in as her short-term viewpoint is pitted against that of two people who have experienced centuries – and one who has paid the price to do the same in the future. Oceans rise, empires fall, circumstances and technology change but human behavior doesn’t.

The only thing keeping this an A- instead of an A is that it teases more than it tells – but then that’s true for the series as a whole. As always, I wish I had a bit more about the hidden world – then again, so does Kelly, so maybe both of our wishes will be granted at a later point.

The next book in the Hidden Dishes series will be titled Magical Mains according to the author’s note at the end of this book. In that same note, the author said that he is planning on two more books after that to bring the series to what I’m sure will be a delightfully and deliciously prepared conclusion. But this reader is glad that THAT day is not yet, because I love this series and will be sorry to see it end.

#AudioBookReview: A Ruin Great and Free by Cadwell Turnbull

Posted on December 30, 2025January 6, 2026 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | audio reviews> audiobooks> B+ Reviews> book reviews

A Ruin, Great and Free (Convergence Saga, #3) by Cadwell Turnbull
Narrator: Dion Graham
Format: audiobook, eARC
Source: purchased from Audible, supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genres: fantasy, horror, science fiction, urban fantasy
Series: Convergence Saga #3
Pages: 374
Length: 10 hours and 29 minutes
Published by Blackstone Publishing on September 16, 2025
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

From bestselling and award-winning author Cadwell Turnbull comes A Ruin, Great and Free, the stunning conclusion to the popular Convergence Saga.
It has been nearly two years since the anti-monster riots. The inhabitants of Moon have been very fortunate in the intervening months. Inside their hidden monster settlement, they’ve found peace, even as the world outside slips into increasing unrest. Monsters are being hunted everywhere, forced back into the shadows they once tried to escape from. Other secret settlements have offered a place to hide, but how long can this half-measure against fear and hatred last?
Over the course of three days, the inhabitants of Moon are tested. The Black Hand continues to search for them and the Cult of the Zsouvox wants to make Moon the last stand in their war against the Order of Asha. This is more than enough to reckon with, but the gods have also placed their sights on Moon—and they bring with them a conflict that may either save or unravel the universe itself.

My Review:

First, this was wow. And second, and third, and as it turns out, fourth. Not always a cohesive wow, but a wow all the same.

It’s also the conclusion to an epic whose whole is DEFINITELY greater than the sum of its parts. But you really need the parts – and if it’s been awhile a refresher on the parts, No Gods, No Monsters and We Are the Crisis – to help you make this ‘fracture’ of the multiverse cohere into something like a single story.

Because the story is considerably larger than the page count of the books would suggest.

From some perspectives – and there are plenty to choose from – this is a story about otherness and equality and justice and activism to bring about the last three for the first. While it uses literal monsters, werewolves and vampires and invisible people and magic users, as metaphors for otherness, it does not shy away from equating ‘being a monster’ with being ‘other’ on any axis that we already use to separate people, including but absolutely not limited to race, gender or gender representation, sexual preference or the lack thereof, socioeconomic class, immigration status, ethnicity, etc., etc., and truly ad nauseum.

Humans seem to actively search for axes on which they can divide themselves (all sharp puns equally intended) so they can class ‘others’ by any definition as ‘less than.’ So that their own group can be ‘more than.’ You might think that’s a digression but it’s NOT. The exploitation of this phenomenon is the heart of the story.

At least one of the hearts. It’s a monster, it has more than one.

At the same time – and very much the man, wizard, god, whatever behind the curtain – this is a story at the intersection of “God created mankind in his own image,” the reverse, which is that humanity creates gods in its own image, and the Yiddish proverb that goes, “Man plans and God laughs.”

Because this is where the story comes together in the literal sense, as the one and many deus ex machina (dei ex machina?) who have been maneuvering humanity and its monsters and monstrousness from behind the scenes on all the worlds of the multiverse. (We’re only closely observing two and it’s plenty to get the flavor of the mess they’re dealing with.)

If humanity creates gods in its own image, whether to explore the world, explain the world, excuse the way the world works or cope with the things it doesn’t understand, what would a god do with those same questions?

It might, and in this case it did, create gods and god-like beings in its own image to allow it to observe its world from a perspective outside its own. But the beings it creates would also be gods. Who would also want to create, cope with, and control, their own worlds and circumstances and destinies.

With humanity caught in the crossfire. And that is the other heart of this story, that conflict of purpose and explanation between gods. It’s not a conflict between good and evil per se, but a conflict between gods who believe that the universe that created them is a fascinating thing to explore, control and contain as much as they can, vs those that believe that the universe they can’t control is an enemy that must be destroyed.

The story in this concluding book in the trilogy reveals that all the sides of what could be a terrible equation have been manipulated by gods, the agents of the Cult of the Zsouvox who have created both the monsters in the human population and the movement that has demonized them in order to sow chaos and bring about destruction, while the smaller, quieter, Order of Asha opposes the Cult, moving their human agents as more-or-less willing pawns on their giant chessboard, trying to bring about a possibility that the universe, the Order, humanity, and the gods themselves, all survive. Together.

It’s a slim chance, but it’s the only one they’ve got.

Escape Rating B+: I picked this up for the purpose of listening to it. I could listen to Dion Graham read the worst book in the universe. An old phone book. All the grocery lists. Anything. There were points where I got so caught up in the voice that I was mesmerized – a definite danger as I listen while driving.

There are a LOT of threads to, not exactly unravel because things have already thoroughly unraveled, but ‘ravel’ in this concluding book. The two worlds that we are invested in – or rather we’re invested in the characters (AND WE ARE!) on two different versions of Earth are in the midst of trauma after trauma, and the pace hasn’t let up ever.

In the world most like ours, the Earth of No Gods, No Monsters – even though we now know there are PLENTY of both – the monsters who survived their “Boston Massacre” have found a slice of peace in a remote, intentional, sanctuary community supported by the Order of Asha. A sanctuary that is about to be breached by the Black Hand agents of the Cult of the Zsouvox. Their story is wrapped around questions of standing to defend what they’ve built or escaping to hide in yet another protected shadow in the hopes that they can outrun or outlive the Cult. A decision that is made for them by the Order of Asha informing them that they either stand here or lose the whole multiverse.

(This side of the story, about the risks, rewards and costs of constant activism no matter the cause, has a surprising readalike in We Will Rise Again with its collection of stories and essays that reckon with activism through both fiction and nonfiction, because damn but this is a fictional tour-de-force of the same told in a fascinating, multi-threaded story over multiple times and places and corners of the multiverse.)

The story in another corner of the multiverse, twenty-five years after their “Massacre of Men” by invading aliens aligned with the Cult of the Zsouvox whether they know it or not (honestly I’m not sure) is focused on the manipulators of their own world who see the crisis coming but are trying to fend it off in ways that more or less align with the Order of Asha. (This side of the story is directly related to the author’s first book, The Lesson. While I had enough to empathize with the characters and their dilemma from We Are the Crisis, I wasn’t quite as invested because I didn’t have enough background.)

All of that being said, this book, this series, is a lot. It’s beyond compelling because of the way that it’s using fantasy and science fiction to tell a story that’s really, paraphrasing the original, about human’s inhumanity to other humans. Because the real monsters are just us. The story does make me wonder if we can save ourselves without the intervention of one – or more – deus ex machina who can see us for what we are – because humans as a species have clearly got some problems with that.

By putting the story – just as the gods in this story put their own questions – into a scenario outside ourselves, it does what SF does when it’s at the top of its game. It holds up a mirror to society as it is to show both what is and what could be. And that’s what I’m taking away from this read.

However, I’m really glad that I have copies of all three books and audiobooks for this one. Because the way that the end turns itself around and explains or at least informs every single thing that has happened from the very beginning means that this fascinating and fantastic trilogy is going to be even better – and become a more cohesive and comprehensive story – on a second read/listen. Right after I read and/or listen to the author’s first book, The Lesson, now that I know it’s just a bit of a prequel – in other words, this Convergence Saga converges with that universe. I’m looking forward to starting over – at the beginning of the beginning – to see where it all leads now that I think I know all the players. That I’ll probably discover that I don’t is absolutely part of my fascination with this entire saga.

Grade A #BookReview: Turns of Fate by Anne Bishop

Posted on November 6, 2025November 1, 2025 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | A Reviews> book reviews

Turns of Fate (Isle of Wyrd, #1) by Anne Bishop
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genres: fantasy, fantasy mystery, paranormal, urban fantasy
Series: Isle of Wyrd #1
Pages: 528
Published by Ace on November 11, 2025
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

A young detective investigating crimes of the uncanny will learn that bargains can change your fate—for good or ill—in this darkly enthralling fantasy from the New York Times bestselling author of the Others and the Black Jewels series.
Words have power. Intentions matter.
Most people come to Destiny Park for entertainment. They come to have their cards read to tell them a bit about their future. They come to walk through a beautiful park and to eat at the hotel’s restaurant. They come in the hope of catching a glimpse of the Arcana, the paranormal beings who rule the Isle of Wyrd.
But some people come to make a bargain with the Arcana—to change their fate. And some people come for dark purposes.
When Detective Beth Fahey is sent to Destiny Park to inquire about a “ghost gun,” she will begin a strange journey on which she must learn to navigate the Arcana’s unforgiving laws and dangerous attractions. Her search will draw her into seemingly impossible cases and the secrets of her own past as tensions rise between the Arcana and their human neighbors across the river.
For the Isle of Wyrd is a place where the dead ride trains to their final destinations, predators literally become prey, and seekers’ true natures are revealed in the ripples of destiny unknowingly stirred in their wakes.
Who will live? Who will die? And who will be lost in between?

My Review:

“The humans fear what they do not understand,” a truism from a book I read a very long time ago. Which does not make the statement any less true, or any less applicable to the Isle of Wyrd or this story.

The title of this first entry in the Isle of Wyrd series is the point where the above comment connects with this particular story, because the Isle is all about fate and change and human attempts to fight or flee one or the other. That the humans who come to the Isle and ignore the instructions and caveats are responsible for whatever happens to them is a HUGE part of what is feared and not understood.

Some people just plain expect to control their environment and everyone around them. On the Isle of Wyrd they explicitly do not – or at least do not in the way that they usually understand control.

Sometimes fate, like karma, is a bitch and someone needs to get off the road they are on. And some people can’t recognize that the fate that has befallen them has been all their fault – and of their own choice – all along.

The story begins with one human police detective, a woman who has always been drawn to stories and particularly images of the wild, the weird, and the macabre. It is Detective Beth Fahey’s first day on the job at Precinct 13 in Penwych, just across the Fate River from the Isle of Wyrd.

Beth feels like she has come home, even though she’s never really had one of those, and she’s never been to the area before. On her first trip across the Fate River to the Isle, the powers that be on the Isle, the Arcana, recognize that she has come home – to them – even if neither they nor she understand why or how that is.

Her police colleagues feel the Arcana’s acceptance of Beth in their own bones, in a way that begins her separation from them – and their distrust and resentment of her for it. An attitude that spills out all around them, filled with consequences for everyone on both sides of the river.

Those consequences are going to be deadly for many on the human side of the river. Just because the humans can’t control anything on the Wyrd side, doesn’t mean that the Wyrd side can’t cross over to deliver the fate that quite a few aren’t able to admit they’ve earned.

While the Arcana make sure that Beth, one of their own in spite of the years and the distance she had to travel to get there, doesn’t suffer any further from the fear and the hatred of those humans who absolutely refuse to understand.

Escape Rating A: I’ve been saying for years that somehow there is ‘reading crack’ between the pages of Anne Bishop’s work. Because as soon as I open one of her books, I feel compelled to finish as fast as possible. Somehow, this remains true in spite of reading ebooks, leaving no physical means of embedding that ‘reading crack’. It must be magic, because I read this in a single day.

The world of the Arcana reminds me a LOT of the author’s World of the Others, which I adored. And which also drove me a bit bonkers in some of the same ways. Specifically, I can’t help but wonder whether the garden-variety humans of either world would be quite so much like us if humanity evolved on a world where humans were not and had never been the apex predators.

But it was easy to set that quibble aside and just dive right into this story – because of Beth Fahey. At the beginning, she’s just as lost as we are. She may be drawn to stories of the weird and the uncanny, but she hasn’t experienced those worlds. She loves fantasy art and always has, in spite of a guardian screaming at her that she was going to Hell for that love.

She’s become a police detective to investigate mysteries because her own background is one. Her parents either died or left her behind, she was raised by a guardian who was no relation to her and who never seems to have officially taken charge of her in any way and yet it was allowed. There’s a hole in her background – and her heart – that can’t be filled.

At least, not until she crosses the Fate River and meets the Arcana.

But Beth herself has multiple mysteries to solve – all of which are rooted in the Isle of Wyrd. There’s the mystery of her own origins. The mystery of a pack of missing high school boys who are the architects of their own fate – not that the human towns see it that way. There are also several cases of missing people who escaped TO the Isle in order to escape fates that they had NOT brought upon themselves.

And in the middle of those mysteries, magical and mundane (or at least mundane-ish) alike, there’s the mystery of who and what the Arcana ARE, what they are capable of, and just how much control they have over the fates of themselves and the humans that surround them. And how much responsibility humans can be made or forced to take for their own behavior – and their own fates.

I’m looking forward to learning more of Beth’s fate – and the fates of the Isle of Wyrd and the people of the surrounding towns – in the next book in this series. A book that I hope will be announced SOON because I already need another fix!

Genre: urban fantasy

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Grade A #BookReview: Turns of Fate by Anne Bishop

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