Adult Fiction

Someone You Can Build a Nest In

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by John Wiswell
First sentence: “Each year when Shesheshen hibernated, she dreamed of her childhood nest.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There is a lot of gore and a high body count, plus a lot of swearing, including f-bombs. It’s in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of the bookstore.

Shesheshen is a shapeshifter, residing outside the town of Underlook. Sure, she kills people once in a while, but a monster has got to eat. But, one day she is rudely awakened by monster hunters who gravely injure her. (Rosemary. Who knew?) She rushes off (after killing one of them, of course) and finds Homily, a human who is extraordinarily kind. Unfortunately, Homily believes that the monster of Underlook has cursed her family, and so is hunting it. Shesheshen is sure she hasn’t cursed anyone, but since she’s coming to like Homily, she decides to stay and help. Things unravel from there.

This is a hard plot to summarize, because not much happens. On one hand, it’s a simple love story: two characters coming to love themselves and each other and figure out ways to stand together against the world. (Ah, the villain of the story is a doozy.) It’s very simple, but it’s also very weird. To make the monster – to make someone as odd, weird, and potentially scary – the main character is a remarkable thing. Sure, people are dying, people are scared of Shesheshen, but she just wants to live her life. It’s weird, it’s sweet, it’s violent, and it’s charming.

I adored it.

The Bookshop Below

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by Georgia Summers
First sentence: “
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Review copy pilfered from the ARC shelves at work.
Release date: November 18, 2025
Content: There is a lot of violence and swearing, including many f-bombs. There is also one closed-door sex scene. It will be in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of the bookstore.

Cassandra Fairfax never expected much out of her life once she left Chiron’s bookshop. She was a thief – dealing mostly in the magic books that had once been her livelihood at the bookshop- and, with one bad night, she was a killer. But then she got a letter from Chiron willing her his bookshop – again, something she never expected. Except, he was murdered. And the magic bookshops on the river are failing. And maybe Cassandra isn’t cut out to live a non-criminal life. Then again: maybe she’s the only one who can save the magic from disappearing from the world altogether.

I thoroughly enjoyed this one. I really liked the magic system – there are magic books (not ones with instructions, but regular books that just happen to have magic properties) that can be bought (not necessarily with money) in bookshops that you can only find if they are needed. There are readers – Cassandra is one – who can read from the books and make the power come out. It’s dangerous – there’s an instance early on when a reader read a sleeping-beauty-like book, and it was taking over the house and the owners had to go in and fix it. It wasn’t hard to follow, and Summers did a good job implementing the benefits and detriments as she went along, so by the final conflict, there was a lot at stake.

And it kept me interested. I liked the characters – and there are many intriguing characters to like and dislike – and while I thought for a while that Summers wasn’t going to be able to wrap the story up, she did in a very satisfactory way.

I’d love another book in this world, not because it needs one, but because I’m fascinated with the world she created.

Highly recommended.

Last Night at the Lobster

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by Stewart O’Nan
First sentence: “Mall traffic on a gray winter’s day, stalled.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There is swearing, including multiple f-bombs. It’s in the adult fiction section of the bookstore.

In a rundown mall complex in a rundown town in the Northeast, employees at a Red Lobster are having their final night. Corporate decided to shut the restaurant down, and the manager – Manny – was forced to let go of everyone but five that are coming with him to Olive Garden. Most of his employees don’t show up for the last shift, four days before Christmas, which is fine, since a blizzard set in. They’re slow, they’re shorthanded, but dang it, Manny is going to see this last shift through.

It’s a short, reflective novel, taking place over the course of 12 hours or so. Manny is regretting the end of his affair with a waitress, juggling all the employees who didn’t show up, and wondering if he chose the right people or did the right thing. Not much happens – there are customers, and anyone who has worked a service job recognizes them. But, it’s a beautifully written book, and so I didn’t mind the lack of plot so much.

It’s set at Christmas, but I’m not sure it’s a Christmas book. It’s very melancholy, and it shows the effects of decisions made by suits in faraway places. It makes you think about capitalism and the working class and the way we treat service workers. It’s a good book, even if I don’t think I truly loved it.

Audiobook: A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping

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by Sangu Mandanna
Read by Samara MacLaren
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There is swearing, including multiple f-bombs, instances of emotional child abuse, and one fade-to-black sex scene. It’s in the Romance-Fantasy section of the bookstore.

I know: I said a few posts ago that I don’t do romantasy. Let’s put it this way: a slightly magical book set in contemporary times is NOT romantsy, and I think I prefer the latter.

Sera was an up-and-coming, talented witch when she was younger, but when she was 15, her great-aunt, whom she loves and lives with, died. Sera was talented enough to bring her aunt back from the dead, but she lost most of her magic and was exiled from the British Guild of Magic as a result. Now, 15 years later, running an inn full of wayward people (both magical and non-), she finds the resurrection spell, something that will help her get her magic back. It’s a historian, Luke, who happens (sort-of) to be stopping in at the hotel with his younger sister, that puts Sera on the right path, and maybe together they can get her magic back.

This was absolutely delightful, especially on audio. The narrator was perfect (Luke is Scottish, and her accent for him was delightful), and the story just silly enough and charming enough to make me happy. It was exactly what I needed, and I can’t complain.

The Everlasting

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by Alix Harrow
First sentence: “It begins where it ends: beneath the yew tree.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: October 28, 2025
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There is a lot of violence and swearing, including multiple f-bombs. There is also some on-page sexytimes. It will be in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of the bookstore.

This one’s plot is hard to tell, if you don’t want to give too much away. Let’s put it this way: it’s a time loop, it’s vaguely Arthurian, it’s talking about the stories we tell ourselves and the stories countries tell their people, it’s a strong case against colonialism, and it’s about love and power. The rest, I think, is immaterial.

I liked it well enough; I’m not fond of time-travel books, and I struggle with time loops. But, Harrow did this one well, and she managed to close it in a satisfying (and mostly logical) way. I do enjoy her writing, though I have not read much by her, and I was intrigued enough to keep going, even through my confusion. It’s a clever book done well.

(As an aside: this is fantasy with a side of romance, and I enjoy these MUCH more than a romance with a side of fantasy.)

Maybe I should get around to reading her other books.

Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife

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by Martin Edwards
First sentence: “The snow lay deep and deadly,”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: October 7, 2025
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There is some mild swearing, a couple of f-bombs, and murder (of course). It will be in the Mystery section of the bookstore.

Welcome to Midwinter: a remote resort in northern England that is only open to a few people by invitation only. And this Christmas, it’s open to six people – all who are somehow connected to the publishing industry; all who have fallen on hard times – who have been tasked with solving a pretend murder. The winner gets a grand prize and a new lease on life. Except once they get there, people start dying. At first, it seems they are “accidental”, but as the bodies keep piling up, it becomes more and more obvious that the death that happened at Midwinter five years ago has had repercussions.

I picked this up because of the title, because it sounds like a game of Clue. And there is an interactive element to this; we are given the same information the players in the story are, and it’s possible (if you are not me) to figure out who committed the “pretend” murder. The actual murders in the story have a very Agatha Christie-like quality to them, as does the whole story. Our narrator for most of the book is Harry Crystal, a washed-up mystery writer, whose whole schtick was copying classic mysteries. I feel like, in some respects, that Edwards didn’t get me quite enough information as we went along (I’m not the closest of readers), because the solution came out of left field a little bit. Even so, I didn’t have super high expectations for this, only wanting a bit of fun, and it absolutely fit that bill.

Audiobook: Discontent

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by Beatriz Serrano, translated by Mara Faye Lethem
Read by Emer Kenny
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There is some swearing, including a few f-bombs, talk of sex, and drug use. It’s in the Adult Fiction section of the bookstore.

On the surface, Marisa appears to have the ideal life: a good home, a good job, and a sexy neighbor to hook up with. But, her job is a soulless one: she’s a middle manager at an ad agency. And, especially in the year after the death of her closest co-worker, Marisa is finding it harder and harder to stomach going to work. Things come to a head at a company-sponsored weekend retreat, where Marisa – as the token office feminist – is asked to give a presentation to the company about “what it means to be creative”, something which she is not sure she is anymore.

I usually try to stay away from books that everyone at work has read, but this one (plot notwithstanding) sounded fascinating. And honestly, it’s a good book. I’ve taken to calling it an anti-capitalist manifesto (and not written by an American!) – it’s a treatise about all the ways in which work, the thing that enables living, is soul-crushing, and how life would be so much better if we chose to work at things that we wanted to do instead of having to work in order to pay for the things we want to do.

It’s the characters that drive the book as well. I loved Marisa, and her snide comments and observations about work life, and her quiet desperation to not have to go shut herself up in an office doing unimportant work for 9 hours a day. I also adored the narrator; Kenny was brilliant at capturing Marisa’s sardonic voice.

And oh, the ending. It’s a riot.

Highly recommended.

The Kiss Curse

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by Erin Sterling
First sentence: “Given that the spell had been ‘Turn this leaf into something else,’ and Gwynnevere Jones had indeed turned that leaf into something else, it seemed extremely unfair that everyone was now screaming at her.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: The Ex-Hex
Content: There is a lot of swearing, including multiple f-bombs, as well as a few on-page sex scenes. It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

All Gwyn wants to do is live her life in Graves Glen, run her little witch shop, and enjoy her family being in charge of the magic. So when Wells Penhallow shows up and has the nerve to open a witch shop across the street from hers, she is more than upset. She’s livid. She’s okay with her cousin’s husband, Rhys, but she wants nothing to do with Wells. At all. Except, they can’t seem to stay away from each other (“friendly competition” and all), and when a weird coven shows up, Gwyn needs Wells’s help to figure out why her magic has weakened.

I didn’t really think The Ex-Hex needed a sequel, but once I got back into the world of Graves Glen, I was quite pleasantly surprised to find myself enjoying being back there. It’s such a delightful town, with such delightful characters, and I really liked the push-and-pull of Gwyn and Wells. (Also: props for a bi queen!) It’s not a deep book, but it is a lot of fun.

Maybe I’ll even read the third book in the series.

Queen Demon

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by Martha Wells
First sentence: “The sun was high and bright when Kai rode into Benais-arik in Bashasa’s wake, their cadres on horseback around them.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: October 7, 2025
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Others in the series: Witch King
Content: There is death, including several murders, and some mild swearing. It will be in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of the bookstore.

I’d say spoilers for Witch King, but I’m not sure there are?

This one is split into two intermingling parts: the past and the present. The past tells how Kai became the Witch King, how he came to fight the Hierarchs, and how he and Bashasa’s relationship (of sorts; it’s unclear how much their relationship was, still) came to develop and deepen. The present is mostly Kai and his family – his witch friend, her wife, her wife’s brother, and a couple of children – end up chasing after what may or may not be a new Heirarch, which (obviously) they want to stop.

This one took me a bit to get into, partially because I read Witch King more than a year and a half ago, and I honestly couldn’t remember much from it. That said, I persevered, and after a bit, I got the rhythm of the story, and I found myself really loving Kai and his adventures again. My only real complaint is the ending – it’s dramatic and grand, but Wells left strings dangling, and I’m not sure the story is complete. At least I hope the story isn’t complete. Because while I thought this was a duology, I hope that she will be able to give it a more satisfying ending. But that’s a small complaint. It’s an excellent story, and Wells is as gifted with fantasy as she is with science fiction.

Fingers crossed for more.

Nine Goblins

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by T. Kingfisher
First sentence: “It was gruel again for breakfast.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: January 20, 2026 (unless you want it in e-book; it’s available now)
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There is some violence, including a huge (kind of gory) massacre. It will be in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of the bookstore.

Look: goblins aren’t really made for war. It’s unfortunate that they found themselves in such a state – well, it’s not really their fault – that they are in a constant war with the humans and elves. Mostly, what goblins want to do is complain. Which, they suppose, war is good for. And the members of the Whining Nines (ha!) are really good at that. And their sergeant, Nessilka, doesn’t really want to be in charge, but since the rest of the goblins in her unit are really kind of useless, she supposes being in charge is what she has to do. That is, until they accidentally end up in the forest on the elf/human side. Where there is something decidedly… not right.

Okay, I don’t read e-books. I don’t like e-books. But, this one was spoken highly enough by several coworkers, and because it’s T. Kingfisher, I was willing to read an e-book. And I was not disappointed. Seriously. This one made me laugh out loud. It made me delighted the whole way through. There was enough of a plot to keep me going, but mostly it was the characters that just charmed the socks off me. I loved them all. And I would happily join them for more adventures if Kingfisher wanted to write them.

I don’t think I’ve read a bad Kingfisher book yet.