Speculative Fiction

Amari and the Night Brothers

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by B. B. Alston
First sentence: “I’m sitting in the principal’s office.”
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Content: There are some scary moments, mostly with monsters, and instances of bullying. It’s in the Middle Grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

Amari’s older brother (and hero), Quinton, has been missing for six months. He had graduated from high school, he had a job – or so he said – and then he just… disappeared. And it’s been affecting Amari’s school life, mostly because she just knows he’s not dead like everyone else assumes. And so when Quinton appears to her in a Wakeful Dream with a nomination to go to the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs summer camp, she figures it’s the best way she has to find out what Really Happened. 

Once there, though, Amari discovers that she is a magician; one with a percentage of magic so high that it’s almost impossible. This brings attention to her, and not always the good kind. Additionally, she is trying out to be a Junior Agent in the Department of Supernatural investigations, which is where her brother worked before his disappearance, and she’s met with all sorts of pushback for wanting to be one of the Elite. And, to top it all off, the evil magician Moreau (yes, like in the Island of Dr…) has a nefarious plan to destroy the Bureau and have magicians take over, and wants Amari to join him. 

I think the marketing material is “Artemis Fowl” meets “Men in Black” but I think it’s more along the Percy Jackson lines. A girl, who doesn’t know her worth, finds a secret camp of people with similar powers, and comes into her own fighting a battle by the end of the book? Comparisons aside, this is a LOT of fun. I liked Amari, felt her struggles were real, glad she found some good friends along the way, and there was a satisfying ending as well as leaving things open for the next book in the series (which I immediately put on hold at the library). I think Alston is one of those writers who, like Riordan, has the potential to capture a whole generation (or two) of children’s imaginations. 

I can’t wait to read the next one!

The Stolen Heir

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by Holly Black
First sentence: “A passerby discovered a toddler sitting on the chilly concrete of an alley, playing with the wrapper of a cat-food container.”
Others in the series: The Cruel Prince, The Wicked King, The Queen of Nothing
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There is some disturbing violence, child abuse, and swearing, including a few f-bombs. It’s in the Teen (grades 9+) section of the bookstore.

Wren thought she was a mortal, until the day when her faerie parents came an violently took her from her mortal family. From there, they kept her in the Court of Teeth, abusing her and trying to make her as vicious as she was. But, she escaped back to the mortal world, prefering to live in the forest, scrounging for food, and breaking faerie spells instead. That is, until the heir of Elfhame, Oak, comes to ask Wren’s help going north to the Court of Teeth to overthrow her mother and rescue his father.

Of course, their quest isn’t that simple. There is a lot of mistrust and backstabbing, and some close calls, and some very tense moments. Black is not afraid to hurt or kill off characters, and there were moments that I was genuinely worried about Wren and Oak. And then the end… let’s just say, well, now I’m going to have to read the next book.

I’ll venture to say that no one understands the fae with all their charms and vicious nature, and no one writes better faerie books than she does. And this is an excellent addition to the Elfhame books.

Audiobook: The Inheritance Of Orquídea Divina

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by Zoraida Córdova
Read by Frankie Corzo
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Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There is mention of abuse, one on-screen sex scene, and some swearing, including a few f-bombs. It’s in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of the bookstore.

Orquídea Divina Montoya is dying, so she calls her family back to their home in Four Rivers so they can say goodbye. Once they get there though they are confronted with the decisions Orquídea made in the past. When the house burns down, Orquídea is turned into a tree, and three of them – her grandchildren Marimar, Rey, and great-grandchild, Rhiannon are left with magic marks – they are forced to figure out what Orquídea has done to bring them all to this point. Seven years after Orquídea’s death, members of the Montoya family are dying, and it’s up to Marimar, Rey, and Rhiannon to finally untangle all the knots Orquídea tied, and set everyone free.

I’m not usually one for magical realism, but I really loved this one. Part of it was the narrator: Corzo is incredibly talented at capturing the essence of a book and holding the listener’s interest. But there’s also a deeper layer to this book as well: it’s about generational trauma, and the choices one makes to survive. Orquídea is doing the best she can in a bad situation, and she is making decisions that backfire, but ones that also give her her family. It’s captivating and engrossing and heartbreaking all at once.

I’m so glad I finally got around to this.

Audiobook: Blood Debts

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by Terry J Benton-Walker
Read by Bahni Turpin, Joniece Abbott-Pratt, Torian Brackett & Zeno Robinson
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Or Listen at Libro.fm
Release date: April 4, 2023
Content: There is a lot of violence, a lot of swearing, including many f-bombs, and an on-screen sex scene. It will be in the Teen (grades 9+) of the bookstore.

The basic plot? Clem and Chris Trudeau are practitioners of Generational magic – a branch of magic along with Light and Moon and Necromancy. But their family hasn’t had the best history with it. Their grandmother was the leader of the Gen magic council but was framed for murder and killed by an angry mom. Their father was killed after something went wrong with a spell Chris cast. And their mother was slowly dying until they found the cause: a hex doll. Chris and Clem are determined (in spite of adults telling them to stay out of it) to figure out why their family has had such a run of bad luck with magic and fix it.

Truth be told, it’s a LOT more than just that. This book has everything. Family drama? Check. Solving multiple murders? Check. Stupid white people with grudges and guns? Check. Authorities refusing to help because the Trudeaus are black? Check. Zombies? Check. (Seriously.) Wonderfully sweet gay love? Check. Complicated gay love? Check. This book has EVERYTHING. It’s so much.

That’s not to say it was bad. It wasn’t. The audio is especially good – the narrators pulled me in and kept me coming back for more, even as I wanted to cringe and pull away because it’s a LOT. But, I really liked the magic system Benton-Walker dreamed up, and I liked the way he wove the challenges and triumphs of Black people into the book. There’s surprisingly a lot to talk about. (There’s just a LOT. Period.)

In the end, I think it was good? I’m still reeling from the end, and I want to know if there’s another, so at the very least, it hooked me.

Saint

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by Adrienne Young
First sentence: “There was a blue door with a black lantern on Forsyth Street.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: Fable, Namesake, The Last Legacy (which I read but never wrote a blog post for!)
Content: There is some mild swearing, violence, and one off-screen sex scene. It’s in the YA (grades 6-8) section of the bookstore.

In this prequel to Fable, we follow her father Saint, and her mother, Isolde, as they start out and first meet. Saint is a scrappy helmsman with a dream and a bit of a legend surrounding him. He’s not ruthless, but rather willing to get the job done no matter what it takes. He has dreams that the Narrows can be so much more than it is. Isolde is on the run from her mother, Holland, a master gem merchant and a terrible parent, someone who uses Isolde for her skill as a gem sage rather than caring for her as a daughter. When Isolde and Saint meet she is contracted to Zola, Saint’s nemesis, but things go sideways when Zola steals from Saint and he gets Isolde to get it back. From there, it’s history. 

Look: it’s not a great book. But it is a fun story, and I’m invested in this world that Young has built. I’ll read pretty much any story set in the Narrows, even if it’s kind of lame. But, there is something about these characters, and I really did enjoy getting to know a different side of Saint. So, no: not high literature. But it was fun.

In the Lives of Puppets

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by T. J. Klune
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher
Release date: April 25, 2023
Content: There are a couple of swear words, including one or two f-bombs, plus some sexual humor. It will be in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of the bookstore.

This is one that I feel like the less you know, the better off you are. The basic premise is this: Vic is a human who is living with robots – his father, an anxious vacuum, and a sadistic nurse robot (trust me) – in the forest. One day, he discovers an android, fixes it, and brings it back online. It has a connection to Vic’s father (who is, yes, an android) which changes the course of Vic’s life. 

What really drives this book is the characters. Yes, the plot is loosely based on The Adventures of Pinocchio (the book, not the Disney movie), but it’s the characters that drive the story. We got a couple of copies to pass around the store, and we kept reading passages about Rambo the vacuum and Nurse Rached aloud to each other. We started a text thread of quotes. We laughed a LOT. But it’s more than that, too. Klune is meditating on the purpose of humanity, whether we – with all our negatives – are actually worth being alive. And if we are worth it, what is that worth. 

Also, know that I sobbed for the last 50 pages of the book. Klune pulled me into his world and I felt every bit of it. Heartbreak, love, humor, betrayal, acceptance, and loss. 

I have been positively ruined for other books for a while. You will absolutely want to read this when it comes out in April.

Nettle & Bone

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by T. Kingfisher
First sentence: “The trees were full of crows and the woods were full of madmen.”
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Content: There are some intense moments, discussion of domestic violence, and some other violence. It’s in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of the bookstore.

Marra is the third daughter of the king and queen of the Harbor Kingdom, and she never really expected her life to amount to much. She went to serve in the convent of Our Lady of Grackles when she was 15 and has spent half of her life feeding chickens and doing embroidery. But, after her neice dies unexpectedly and she discovers that her sister, married to the king of the Northern Kindom, is being abused, Marra decides to take matters into her own hands. With the help of a dust-wife, a disgraced ex-knight, and a reluctant fairy godmother, she attempts to tackle the impossible: rescuing her sister without disrupting the precarious political balance of the kindgom.

I’ve read several Ursula LeGuin books and loved them, and this is my second by Kingfisher (same person, diffrent nom de plumes) and loved this just as much as I did her other one. She has such a way with telling a story with heart and humor and embracing the tropes (the hero’s journey, in this one) while subverting them. She makes characters that are just wonderful to spend time with, real and complex and funny and grumpy — all of it. I loved every minute of reading this slim book, and I will happily read anything else that Kingfisher has out. I’m definitnely a fan, now.

Greywaren

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by Maggie Stiefvater
First sentence: “At the beginning of this story, years and years ago, two dreamers arrived at paradise.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: Call Down the Hawk, Mister Impossible
Content: There is violence (the body count is high) and swearing, including multiple f-bombs. It’s in the Teen section (grades 9+) of the bookstore.

Stiefvater starts “Call Down the Hawk’ thus: “This is going to be a story about the Lynch brothers.” Lest you forget and think this series is about Ronan (or Ronan and Adam) or Bryde, or Hennessey or Jordan, or any of the other characters that weave in throughout the series, at its heart, this is a story about the Lynch brothers. It is a story about family – the family of origin, yes, and how it became that way – but also found family. It’s about sticking together through any odds and letting go when you need to. It’s about art and the power that it has – in this world, literally – but also the way it touches all lives. it’s about relationships between people who are different and the same, sometimes literally the same. It’s about forgiveness and acceptance. It’s about so much, all packed into a story about preventing the end of the world and figuring out one’s role in it. It’s about choices and the consequences of those choices.

But most of all it has a heart that is so, so big. Yes, I cried when it was over because it moved me in ways that I didn’t think I could be moved. My life is so vastly different from the Lynch brothers (obviously), and yet the themes are universal. It’s a more mature book than I think Stiefvater’s younger readers will realize, and I appreciate the way these books – beginning with the Raven Boys – grew up over time.

I am sad to see them all go, but I am glad that they went out this way It was a perfect ending.

Bloodmarked

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by Tracy Deonn
First sentence: “My veins burn with the spirits of my ancestors.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: Legendborn
Content: There is swearing, including multiple f-bombs, and a lot of violence. It’s in the Teen section (grades 9+) of the bookstore.

We pick up where Legendborn left off, so spoilers for that, obviously.

Bri has been chosen as the Scion of Arther, Pendragon, who has woken up after 250 years. The problem is, though, that she’s an outsider (read: black) and the (white, racist) Order doesn’t accept her as what she is: their King. Instead, they gaslight her, drug her, and kidnap her, institutionalizing he. But, her friends are awesome, and they break her free and they all set about doing what needs to be done: training Bri how to better use her powers. This involves meeting new people, facing new dangers, and unraveling a bit more of the corruption behind the Order. Also (and I think we knew this was coming) – there’s a nice love triangle between Nick, Bri, and Sel (the Kingsmage), which is very fitting for an Arthurian tale.

Oh, I love this series. I love the way it plays with race, expectations, and magic. I love the characters (I would do anything for Alice!), and I love the way Deonn has woven different elements – from Bloodwalking, to being marked by demons, to rootcraft, to the aether of the Order – together so effortlessly. The only thing I don’t like is that I have to wait at least a year for the final book in the series.

So much great here.

Heat Wave

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by TJ Klune
First sentence: “Near dusk, shadows stretch like reaching darkness, the heat from the summer day like molten claws to the chest, digging into the beating heart of a city under siege.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: The Extraordinaries, Flash Fire
Content: There is an extended discussion of gay porn, how to have anal sex, and a very awkward sex scene. It’s in the YA section (grades 6-8) of the bookstore, but really needs to be moved.

We pick up with our illustrious heroes soon after the events of Flash Fire. Except Nick’s mom isn’t dead. Right? It’s all weird. Owen is back as a villain, and Simon Burke is the Big Bad – not only is he running for myor of Nova City, he wants to do away with Extraordinaries.

Underneath all of that Nick is trying to enjoy his relationship with Seth, and figure out how to be an Extraordinary. Plus apply for college. It’s a lot for a kid.

Honestly, while this was fun, and an okay ending to a series, it wasn’t my favorite. I don’t know if it’s because I wanted and lost the momentum I had between the other two, but even though I adored Nick, Seth, Gibby, and Jazz and their very healthy relationships with their parents, I didn’t really like the book. Maybe because I felt like it took too long to get going. Maybe it was because I ahdn’t read the others in ages Maybe I just wasn’t in the mood.

Not Klune’s best book, but I am still glad for the LGBT representation. Not a bad book, just not for me.