Speculative Fiction

Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter

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by Heather Fawcett
First sentence: “I paused on the threshold of the shop to stamp the frost from my boots.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: February 17. 2026
Review copy provided by the publisher
Content: There are some dangerous situations, including murders. It will be in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of the bookstore.

Agnes is a widow who has had one dream: to run a cat shelter for the feral cats of Montreal, Quebec. She and her husband operated the struggling shelter until his death, and she’s been attempting to keep it going. But after a magical disaster (two magicians were dueling in the street and her shop was in the crossfire), she’s been forced to find a new home for her store (and cats). It proves difficult until she stumbles on a really cheap place for rent. It’s perfect, until she realizes that it’s a front for possibly the most notorious magician in Montreal, and his dealings in magical artifacts. Things get even more complicated when his nemesis finds him, breaks through the wards, and attacks Agnes (and the cats!). How is she supposed to deal with this? Even better: how is she supposed to deal with his clutter?

This has the same tone and whimsy as the Emily Wilde books, and I did like it, just not as much as I adored Emily Wilde. Maybe it was the cats (so many cats!), or maybe it was that Agnes was a widow mourning the loss of her husband. I do like the human and magical being pull, and Agnes was feisty enough to keep me entertained. I guess it just wasn’t everything I was hoping it would be.

Still worth reading, though.

We Burned So Bright

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by TJ Klune
First sentence: “Don switched off the television.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: April 28, 2026
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There is swearing, including multiple f-bombs. There is also discussion of suicide, murder, and violence. It will be in the Science Fiction/Fantasy bookstore.

The world is ending. A black hole is coming, and there is no way to stop it. So, it’s just acceptance. Except everyone is facing it differently. For Don and Rodney, this means driving from Maine to the Pacific Coast to fulfill their obligations. Along the way, they meet a myriad of people, all dealing with the end of the world in their own way.

This was such a depressing book, especially for Klune. I suppose it’s because I’m used to end-of-the-world stories where humanity has hope of surviving. But, when faced with a black hole? Nothing. It’s nihilistic, in many ways. And yet, because it’s Klune, this was hopeful and touching, Don and Rodney had a beautiful life together, despite the challenges they faced being gay. They loved each other, supported each other and they were ready to face the end together. And Klune is a very astute observer of humanity, and every character, no matter how long we interacted with them, felt real.

So, no, it won’t be my favorite Klune book, but it’s absolutely worth reading.

Good Spirits

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by B. K. Borison
First sentence: “On the first day of December, the universe gave to me –“
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There is some swearing, including f-bombs, and on-page sexytimes. It’s in the Romance section of the bookstore.

Harriet York is a decent person who absolutely adores Christmas. So, she’s incredibly surprised when Nolan, a Ghost of Christmas Past, shows up at her house, saying that she is due for a reckoning. However, things don’t go as usual: Harriet’s not a bad person, though she has some regrets, and Nolan is finding that being with Harriet is more important than doing his afterlife job. Though the deadline of Christmas Eve is quickly approaching, and they need to figure out why it’s Harriet being haunted.

Ok, the premise of this one is so silly: she falls in love with the Ghost of Christmas Past. I mean, c’mon. However, Borison does it well. She makes it work. She’s developed a whole Department of Hauntings and Spirits, that I definitely want to know more about, and made the magic part of this book actually work. Harriet was a delightful character – quirky but not that girl – to spend time with, and she made some tough decisions, standing up for herself to her (admittedly rotten) parents. While it was a bit slow to start, I found myself enjoying this one enormously.

So yeah, silly but worth it. And I’m hooked on Borison’s books now.

Audiobook: The Scorpio Races

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by Maggie Stiefvater
Read by Steve West & Fiona Hardingham
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: It’s violent. But, if there’s a kid, say, 11 years old or so, who is interested in dark fairy-type tales, I’d give it to them. It’s in the Young Adult Bestsellers section of the bookstore.

Because this story isn’t this story without the first sentence: “It is the first day of November, and so, today, someone will die.”

I haven’t reread this in a handful of years, but I seem to be on a Stiefvater kick this year (seven of her books and counting!) and I couldn’t pass up the chance to listen to this one. And, like it always is, it’s an excellent story. The narrators did a wonderful job with the story, and I loved being back on Thisby in the thick of things again.

I adore Stiefvater’s work, and this is absolutely no exception.

Wolf Worm

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by T. Kingfisher
First sentence: “The rail station was very new, the paint still bright on the lettering that read Siler Station.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: March 24, 2026
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There are some pretty gross moments, so it’s not for the squeamish stomach. I will be in the Horror section of the bookstore.

Sonia Wilson is a naturalist and an artist, but since it’s 1880 and she doesn’t have a husband, and her father recently passed, she doesn’t have many options for work. She grew tired of teaching at a girls’ boarding school, and so when a job opened up in rural western North Carolina with a naturalist looking for an artist to complete his book, she took the job. What she got, however, was much more than she bargained for.

(Read: There’s something very creepy going on in the woods.)

I don’t read horror. I don’t like being creeped out, I don’t like being grossed out. And yet, I adore Kingfisher. I haven’t read any of her horror before (maybe I will after this one), but when this one came across my desk, I couldn’t say no.

On the one hand, it was very creepy, and VERY gross. A lot of that gross was natural grossness; if you are made squeamish by bugs, this may not be for you. But it did get pretty disgusting. On the other hand, Kingfisher (like always) gave us a heroine who was smart, practical, independent, and a critical thinker. Sure, she was probably too curious for her own good, but she was a delight. And it was shot through with Kingfisher’s wit and the way she is able to create a sense of place. It’s not a delightful read, but it is a compelling one.

Just don’t read it at night.

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: “
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
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.

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.

The Guardians of Dreamdark: Windwitch

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by Laini Taylor
First sentence: “The wolf tasted the babe’s face with the tip of his tongue, and pronounced her sweet, and the fox licked the back of her head to see if it was so.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
I read my old edition; the new edition will be released on September 23, 2025.
Content: There are some intense moments of danger. It will be in the YA Science Fiction/Fantasy section in the bookstore.

I was on Instagram, when I stumbled across Laini Taylor announcing that she’s re-releasing her first book in a new edition. I was immediately excited, mostly because I remember loving this series and I know it’s been out of print for years. So, I decided to dig out my copies (which I have been meaning to reread for years) and give them a reread to see if they hold up.

And it does. I had one quibble: it’s not really a middle grade book anymore. Maybe 18 years ago, it was, but middle grade books have changed so much that I can’t really see giving this to anyone younger than 11 or 12. It’s not the content; it’s mostly Taylor’s writing style. She’s a very lush, descriptive writer (one of the things I like about her), and she’s not a very linear writer. Both of these add up to a more mature writing style for kids than I think kids are used to/want right now. I think my oldest read this when she was 11, but I couldn’t fathom giving it to my youngest at the same age, 10 years later. It’s a gorgeous book, with an intense plot, and the characters are fabulous, and it holds up all these years later. It’s just an older book than I remember it being.

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.