The Serpent in Heaven

The Serpent in Heaven by Charlaine Harris, 304 pages. 

 

 This 4th entry in the Gunnie Rose series doesn't actually contain the titular Gunnie Lizbeth Rose, but rather her little sister Felicia. Felicia has been studying at the Grigori Rasputin school in the Holy Russian Empire, although not being taught the kind of magic she wants because nobody there thinks her capable of it. However, when danger comes to the school in the form of Felicia's past, she will have plenty of chances to prove herself. 

 Unfortunately, this is by far the weakest book in the series. This is partially because Felicia is a much weaker than Lizbeth, but not entirely. I also found the hand of "people making nonsensical decisions to make the plot work" to be extra heavy this book, and I had a hard time telling the difference between when 15-year-old Felicia was jumping to crazy conclusions and when those nonsensical conclusions were somehow true. This was weak enough that I'm not sure I will continue the series, but the next book is back to Lizbeth and the fantasy western concept that caught my interest in the first place, so I may give it another chance. 

Mississippi Solo

 

Mississippi Solo: A River Quest by Eddy Harris, 256 pages.

This memoir, published in 1988, follows Harris' solo journey down the Mississippi River in a canoe. Along the way Harris connected not only with the river itself, but with the incredible variety of people who make their home on it. Harris has a real talent for connecting with strangers, and these thoughtful, meaningful connections provide just as much substance to the book as the misadventures of a novice canoeist who had no idea what he was getting himself into. I read this book too slow to attend the book discussion, which is a shame, but I am still so glad I decided to finish it anyways. This is exactly the kind of thing I want in a memoir, and I fully expect to read it again. I'm excited to see how this book converses with Life on the Mississippi, which I am embarrassed to admit I am also behind on. 

There Be Dragons Here

 

There Be Dragons Here by S.L. Rowland, 288 pages.

For nearly a century Hilda Flintbreaker journeyed on adventures in every corner of the continent with the adventuring party Stone & Splendor. But for the last several decades, Hilda Rockfall has had a much smaller kind of adventure, marrying and raising children and grandchildren. But when the last of her old adventuring party dies and leaves her with an outlandish request, Hilda is set for one last adventure to spread his ashes on a mountain in dragon territory. Her granddaughter, a war goat, and a dragon broodling all come together to make the adventure of a lifetime. 

This was the coziest, most wholesome book. Unlike some books of that description, it had a solid plot that felt exciting but not necessarily frightening. There was a lot of emotional heft to it, and the novel managed to deal in a meaningful way with grief without feeling heavy. I really enjoyed it, and would recommend it for an emotionally-driven fantasy novel.  

Ruby Falls by Gin Phillips, 368 pages

 

 

Others have summarized this one, so I’ll skip that part. I like this one pretty well! While technically a mystery, it didn’t really have that tone or fit into any of the endless flavors or subgenres. Just a solid realistic historical fiction. And there's plenty here for you if you just...like rocks. Will definitely seek out more by this author.

Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz, 163 pages

Others on our blog have summarized this one very well, so I’ll skip that part. I had tried the audiobook of this one a while back, but found that it required more attention than I was willing to give in that moment. Inspired by the reviews of my coworkers, I gave it another shot and am glad I did. It’s hard to find something that finds the sweet spot of wholesome but not saccharine, and I think this did that very well. The pacing of revealing with the world in the story was excellent, but I’m not sure that there was a whole lot going for it after that. The approach to social issues that it touched on seemed a little on-the-nose...but overall it was a very fun quick read.

The New People

 

The New People by Andrea Uptmor, 320 pages.

Newly married, Emma and Rachel have just moved from Chicago to a college town in rural Indiana, into a shoddily flipped house that was foreclosed when the housing bubble burst. Emma is uneasy in the new house, overshadowed by her wife's success and surrounded by the type of community that was not easy to grow up in for a queer girl and isn't any better in 2008. But soon the house itself starts making her uneasy, things go missing, damage and mess come from nowhere, and something always seems to be going wrong. It turns out that this is because the previous owners never left. Charlotte and Dirk have been secretly staying in a hidden attic apartment, building resentment against the women who took their house and desperately waiting for what comes next for two retirees with nothing to their names. 

This was masterfully crafted in a way that I found surprising for a debut novel. I was impressed how our two protagonist's perspectives wound together, often mirroring each other in ways that the characters themselves would be surprised by. There is a real sense of uneasiness to this book that makes it hard to tell what genre direction it was going to go in, which I think fed back into the sense of uneasiness again. There is of course something very disturbing about the idea of someone secretly living in your home who means you harm. But rather than what could have been a fairly solid suspense premise, Uptmor instead focuses on a very human element, which makes the novel shine in a way that is both more complex and interesting. Definitely a recommendation from me. 

This book will be published on 21 July 2026 

Daydream Hour

 

Daydream Hour: Doodles by Ryoko Kui, 232 pages

This is a collection of doodles, art studies, and short comics from Ryoko Kui, the creator of Delicious in Dungeon. Kui appologizes in the introduction of the book for how ridiculously self-indulgent it is, but I do think that its self-indulgence is the real strength of this collection. It is a very cozy collection of low-stakes art that is very relaxing to read. However, it is also an interesting peak behind the curtain at the process of making a manga, and of a professional artist's process. A fun little expansion that is great fun for fans of the series. 

After Hours at Dooryard Books

After Hours at Dooryard Books by Cat Sebastian, 351 pages.

Taking in the stray his landlady brings him isn't anything new for Patrick, she did the same for him years ago and he's been trying to replay the kindness to the world ever since. Nathaniel is skittish, clearly a man running from something, but Patrick gives him a job in his new bookshop, and hopes a chance to rest will help him get past whatever he's running from. Soon the two men, along with Patrick's recently widowed best friend and her fresh baby, are forming their own community in a radical corner of 1968 New York, even as their pasts crowd in.

Unfortunately, I seem to be less impressed by each Cat Sebastian book I read. I really loved We Could Be So Good, but this book feels like it could use some structural edits. It is extremely slow, and it feels like we know virtually nothing about Nathaniel until his first perspective chapter well into the book. Overall, it feels like this book never really went anywhere, and it was slow getting there. I really liked the characters, but I think it would benefit a lot from some added plot. 

 

The Russian Cage

 

The Russian Cage by Charlaine Harris, 304 pages.

In this third installment of the Gunnie Rose series, Lizbeth is not on a job. Instead, she has to make her way to the Holy Russian Empire (made up mostly of what was once the West coast of the United States) after receiving a letter that says Eli is in jail. In San Diego, she reconnects with her sister Felicia, meets Eli Savarov's family, and gets way more involved in the politics of the royal family than she would like. 

This was probably the weakest book in the series to far. This is another fish-out-of-water story, much like A Longer Fall, and the actions that characters decide they need to take to kick off the climax make no sense, nor do their consequences (I will avoid being more specific for spoiler reasons). That being said, it was still very entertaining. The GraphicAudio version of the audiobook in particular is fun to have on in the background, and it's easy to get sucked into the story. I will probably continue listening to these. 

Good Luck, Babe!

 

Good Luck, Babe! by Erin Baldwin, 332 pages.

Noelle and Yumi have been best friends since they were kids, until an impulsive kiss the night they submit their application to the Adventureverse (an Amazing Race-type reality show) resulted in a year of no contact. But Noelle will do anything to get the money for her father's medical treatment, including fake-dating her former best friend for an all-couples season of reality TV. Now the girls are suddenly remembering what it's like to be each other's person, but it's hard to figure out feelings on national television, and even harder when everyone else has to believe you already have them figured out. How is a girl supposed to know what's real?

I think this book was made in a lab for me specifically. Much like Noelle, I grew up watching The Amazing Race with my family, and it's uncanny how exactly Baldwin nailed the tone, to the point where I definitely heard the clues in Phil Keoghan's voice, and could visualize the shots of the challenges. I thought the depiction of Noelle's ADHD and anxiety were very well done, and I loved the characters, both individually and as a unit. I would have liked to see a little bit more explicit clearing of the misunderstanding in the backstory, because the hardest thing I found to buy about the premise was that they misunderstood each other that badly for a year, after seeing how instinctively they seem to understand each other at literally every other point. Overall though, I think this novel did a great job balancing a fun, silly premise with a solid emotional heart, so it can be forgiven for making me hum Chappell Roan under my breath for days. I also NEED a director's cut for this book, because every cut for time scene that Baldwin describes in the author's note sounds delightful.

This book will be released 6/23/26 

Nine Goblins

 

 Nine Goblins by T. Kingfisher, 160 pages.

Goblin troops aren't exactly elite, to put things mildly. They're smelly, rude, cowardly, and lack any intelligence to speak of. But when a troop of nine of them end up deep behind enemy lines after an unfortunate encounter with an enemy wizard, it's up to sergeant Nessilka to get her troops home safely. But despite its calm appearance, the forest they find themselves in is somehow even more dangerous than the battlefield they left, and Nessilka will need help if she wants to get anyone out of this alive.

This was a disappointingly unoriginal take on goblins from Kingfisher, who I expected something really interesting from. I was unsurprised to learn when I read the author's note that this was a reprint of her first book, which was originally self-published. It is still a fun, if fairly basic plot, but the amount of disbelief I had to suspend that the goblins hadn't driven themselves to extinction yet was a little hard to scrounge up. I would recommend reading any other Kingfisher.  

The Sea Child

The Sea Child by Linda Wilgus, 304 pages

When Isabel was a young girl, she washed ashore in a small Cornish town, apparently orphaned by a shipwreck. A naval officer and his wife soon adopted her and raised her to become the wife of another wealthy up-and-coming officer. But after the Napoleonic wars soon made her a widow, and her discovery of her husband's poor financial choices left her penniless, Isabel moved back to that Cornish town to make a home for herself and possibly learn a bit more about where she came from. What she didn't expect was to get involved in piracy and be the source of local superstition that she's the child of a sea god.

What a captivating historical adventure! Filled with smuggling, espionage, and piracy, this novel encapsulates the word "swashbuckling" to a T. I enjoyed seeing Isabel's transformation from coddled to scrappy, and the antics at sea kept the plot moving. A good summer read for someone who always wanted to be Keira Knightley's character in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

The Left and the Lucky

The Left and the Lucky by Willy Vlautin, 256 pages

Housepainter Eddie has a solid business as a subcontractor for bigger construction and remodeling projects. Mostly, though, he's trying to keep his primary employee, Houston, on the straight and narrow, away from his many addictions. Then his 8-year-old neighbor Russell starts hanging around Eddie's place, attempting to escape from his abusive older brother and neglectful mother. Soon, Russell is spending more time helping Eddie clean paint brushes and take care of the dog than he ever spends in his own home.

This book doesn't necessarily have a strong plot, but it does have strong characters and a profound sense of the way friendship, even between an unlikely pair, can help people in the most downtrodden of situations. The story is told with care for all of the characters (even Russell's horrible brother), and a sense of realism that makes the reader feel like we can just look out the window and see Eddie and Russell hanging out with the dog. It's hopeful, but only in the most realistic and slightest sense of the word. A quiet story with a strong impact.

The Obake Code

The Obake Code by Makana Yamamoto, 352 pages

Three years after her "last heist," hacker Malia is getting bored with fixing cyber fights and living off the spoils. Convenient, then, that gangsters catch her redhanded and force her to help take down a crooked politician by stealing and decrypting some incriminating documents. However, after getting her crew together, Malia gains the attention of Maddox, a man who performed illegal experiments on her as a child. Yes, those experiments made her the best hacker around, but they also caused a world of mental, physical, and emotional trauma. So Maddox's arrival as right-hand man to the politician astronomically complicates the heist.

This was billed as a standalone novel in the world of Hammajang Luck (Yamamoto's first novel), and while you can read it without reading that first book, I don't really think you should. There are lots of references to the first book, and since I hadn't read it, I was left feeling like I was missing something. The vibes of the criminal crew skew toward The Fast & the Furious (especially with the prevalence of cruising and car thefts going on in the story), and honestly, the drama with Maddox overwhelmed the plot to the point where I forgot what they were meant to be stealing by the time they got there. So cool vibes and a decent found family, but maybe not the best heist novel out there.

The Republic of Memory

The Republic of Memory by Mahmud El Sayed, 480 pages

For 200 years, the Safina has been traveling away from Earth, heading toward a new planet that will house the thousands of colonists encased in stasis pods. Along with all those colonists, however, are thousands of crew members, many of whom are the descendants of the colonists and spend their lives keeping the Safina heading toward its new home. However, there are several factions aboard that don't think the ship should be using such a large amount of energy to maintain the stasis pods for the people who ruined the Earth they were forced to flee from. And despite a heavily regulated and structured world aboard the ship, some crew members are determined to bring change, starting with waking up their ancestors.

Following a wide range of characters, this debut novel is a captivating and wonderfully told story of revolution, based loosely on the Arab Spring uprising of the early 2010s.  The only minor quibble I had with this book is the Clockwork Orange-esque slang used by revolutionary crew members. I was listening to the book, and it took me quite a while to figure out what they were saying as they skipped around languages and euphemisms. But overall, the points of view are compelling and varied, the plot is propulsive, and the cliffhanger ending has me chomping at the bit for the next book.

City of Others

City of Others by Jared Poon, 368 pages

Benjamin Toh is a middle-management government employee, working with his understaffed Division for Engagement of Unusual Stakeholders to handle the supernatural elements of Singapore and keep them from interfering with the normal world. Generally speaking, they're pushed to the limit, fixing run-of-the-mill unexplained phenomena and getting rid of pesky fantastical beings, but when a boring check on a building glitching out of existence turns into something much more dangerous for the whole city, Ben and his motley crew must stretch themselves even farther, all while keeping it out of the attention of the higher-ups.

This is a delightful urban fantasy, full of Singaporean folklore and mythological creatures, and wonderful group of characters. I particularly love the way that Ben and his team have to balance their supernatural work with the mundane tasks (writing and re-writing memos) of bureaucracy. I was also pleasantly surprised by the way in which Ben's attitude toward work and his team's abilities changed as they got deeper and deeper into the problem. An excellent and diverse addition to the subgenre of urban fantasy.

A Fortune of Sand

 A Fortune of Sand by Ruta Sepetys, 320 pages.

Detroit in 1927 is a city of astounding wealth, but also more than its fair share of the crime and corruption that comes along with it. Marjorie Lennox is the youngest daughter of a family who made their fortune in the glass business, but they also have more than their fair share of secrets and corruption. Marjorie is something of an innocent, and she dreams of fashion design. So when she has the opportunity for an artist's residency for women, she jumps on it. And so what if something seems a little off about it, with the buildings strict rules and obsession with security? But although Marjorie has left home, she can't get away from her family's secrets nearly so easily. 

Ruta Sepetys is the master of exquisitely researched historical fiction, and this detail rich book is no exception. Prohibition-era Detroit is an interesting setting, and Sepetys uses a wealth of primary sources to make it fully textured. Unfortunately, I don't know that the story quite holds up to her usual standards. The many, many threads of this book never quite come together to a satisfying conclusion, and instead it feels like it peters out to an anticlimax. I also found that although this is Sepetys' adult debut, it does in many ways still read like a YA novel. That being said, I really loved Marjorie as a character, and found the prose very solid, so I still really enjoyed most of my experience reading this book. I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in the setting, but I'm not sure I would recommend it purely on it's own merits. 

This book is scheduled to be released on May 26th, 2026. 

Muse of Nightmares

 Muse of Nightmares by Laini Taylor, 514 pages.

After the end of Strange the Dreamer, both Sarai and Lazlo are irrevocably and fundamentally changed. What should have finally brought the salvation of the city of Weep may doom it instead, as Minya tries to bend everyone towards vengeance, and old wounds are torn open on every side. 

This is a very well-executed duology. Although I don't know if Muse of Nightmares has quite the same magic as the first book; what it does have is a lot of answers to questions left open at the end of the first book. It is also very committed to continuing exploring the themes from the first book, especially how cycles of violence often feed themselves. There is literally nobody having a good time in this book, no one is happy about anything that is happening, and I think that builds in a lot of complexity, both to the situation and the characters. The end of this book points to the same shared universe as Taylor's other young adult series, and I am very excited for her to write more in it. 

Strange the Dreamer

 Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor, 544 pages

Lazlo Strange had been dreaming of the city of Weep, lost 200 years, since her was a boy in the orphanage. He kept dreaming of it as a junior librarian, making the study of it his life's work, although nobody respected his obsession with a fairy tale. When emissaries arrive from the city, real and present, Lazlo learns the secret that stole the city 200 years ago, and that stole it's true name when he was a child. The shadow of Weep's darkest days hangs over it, days of gods and monsters, and Lazlo will do anything to help them be free.

This is an intensely magical book. Laini Taylor's prose is rich and vivid, and it brings a dreamy, magical world to life. It is a book that deals with a lot of dark subject matter, while still believing that the world is beautiful and people are good. I love the characters and the world, and I enjoy how twisty the story can be. This is a hugely underrated book, and I definitely recommend it. 

Wolvers

Wolvers by Taylor Brown, 320 pages

Ever since men started raising livestock at ranches in the western United States, they've been at war with the wolves, and those who would protect the threatened predator species. Frustrated by the fact that his grandfather lost his ranch due to a fine from killing a protected wolf, Trace takes a job from a some wealthy ranchers to track and illegally kill One-Eleven, the matriarch of the pack that's closest to their land. However, after a run-in with a pro-wolf vigilante nearly kills Trace, he switches alliances, only to find that the wealthy ranchers have replaced him, and are now set on killing both Trace and One-Eleven.

Told from three points of view — Trace, his replacement/would-be assassin, and One-Eleven herself — this story is suspenseful, thought-provoking, and unexpected. I loved the nuance with which Brown explains the rancher vs. wolf situation without ever being too informational or preachy. The only thing that really bothered me was the sexual relationship between Trace and the woman for whom he works in the second half of the book, which felt awkward and unnecessary in an otherwise excellent book.