The Everlasting by Alix Harrow

 

I first heard of Alix Harrow when her short story “A Witch's Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies” was nominated for a Hugo Award. I read it, and I loved it. When her first novel came out, The Ten Thousand Door of January, I read it right away, but was a little disappointed. The book felt disjointed, and I didn’t care for the protagonist or her struggles very much. I felt like the author didn’t successfully make the leap from short story to novel.  

I read Ms. Harrow’s two fractured fairytale novelas when they were nominated for the Hugos and I enjoyed them, although they felt a bit glib (I think in part because I’m getting a little tired of the hard-drinking, Devil-May-care protagonist trope and because I’d read other  fairytale retellings that lined up with my tastes more).

But OMG Starling House! That book was a massive leveling up - one of the absolute best books I read the year it came out. I loved it so much!!! I remember listening to the audiobook while driving on a foggy fall night and feeling throughly spooked out in the most enjoyable way. 

So of course I was excited when the publisher and NetGalley granted me an eARC of a new work by Ms. Harrow. The Everlasting was a book I hadn’t heard much about and didn’t even read a blurb of before I started so I didn’t know what to expect. The beginning made it seem like a fantasy novel but then it became so much more! A story about time travel and national identity and the lies we tell ourselves, I couldn’t stop devouring it because I just had to know what happened next. This book, after Starling House, really cements Alix Harrow as a major talent and a must-read author for me. 

The Time Traveler's Passport collection

  

This is another of Amazon’s themed short story collections by top authors. This time, the stories are all time travel themed and the authors are John Scalzi, R. F. Kuang, Peng Shepherd, Kaliane Bradley, Olivie Blake, and P. Djèlí Clark. This one was a real mixed bag for me. The Scalzi story was enjoyable and clever but with a lack of characterization - something I have come to expect from this author, and it didn’t hurt the story at all. The Kuang story was brutal and breathtaking and the protagonist made a particularly violent choice towards the end that made me dislike them intensely again, not a surprise from this author. And the Clark piece was haunting and sadly realistic. The real standout for me was the story by Peng - I’d never read anything by this author before and I will look out for them in the future. The other pieces were much, much weaker. I might’ve been happier skipping them entirely. I disliked the Bailey story almost as much as I disliked her debut novel (which was a lot). And the Blake story didn’t even feel like science fiction. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. 

The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2025 edited by Nnedi Okorafor and John Joseph Adams

I always said I never used to like anthologies because of the tonal shifts and the variability in quality of the stories. However, I have really started to really enjoy these best of the year anthologies - it’s a great way for someone like me, who usually prefers single author short story collections, to catch up on recent short fiction. There were some Hugo nominees that I had read before in here that I remembered, but much of this collection was new to me. There was a particularly haunting tale about a family using a device to remove memories, originally intended to prevent trauma, being overused with disastrous consequences, that still sticks with me. 

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review. 

Snake Eater by T. Kingfisher

 

I don’t like horror - or at least I thought I didn’t. I never wanted to watch scary movies as a kid. I got nightmares from E.T. so I never saw anything with Freddy or Jason. But after reading and enjoying The Twisted Ones and The Holllow Places by T. Kingfisher, I realized that I can enjoy horror by the right author. After all, T. Kingfisher is also Ursula Vernon, the author of the Hamster Princess books, which my daughters and I love, as well as the Saint of Steel series, Thornhedge, Nettle and Bone, and a bunch of other books I have adored in recent years. So of course I was going to request an eARC of her new novel, Snake Eater from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. And I am SO glad that I did because it was fantastic. Like the Twisted Ones, the protagonist is a woman with a dog who moves to a small town and ends up living someplace a bit creepy where creepy things start happening. There is a delightful cast of oddball supporting characters and the dog, of course, is a very good dog who is just fine in the end. 

Like in The Hollow Places, the characters are amazingly detailed and feel so real and the fantastical elements impinge on the story so gradually that you never lose your suspension of misbelief. The mysteries are meaty and satisfying, though the final reveal felt a little out of left field. Only a little though - the wackiness of the museum of oddities setting did help sell it. It worked in the context mostly, but it was the only  weak point in an otherwise excellent novel. I’m so glad I read this book! Much thanks to NetGalley and the publisher!

The Enchanted Greenhouse by Sarah Beth Durst

I know you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but I was first drawn to Sarah Beth Durst when I saw her book The Spellshop in a Barns and Noble with those delightful purple sprayed edges. I absolutely despise deckled edges, and have refused to read books because they made the reading experience unbearable, but I really do enjoy the current trend of sprayed edges. I was intrigued by the Spellshop’s description, bought the book for my wife, and ended up reading it before she did! It was light and fun and enjoyable, so when I saw another book in the same world by the same author I immediately requested it from NetGalley as an audio eARC. 

This book, The Enchanted Greenhouse, was equally delightful! It really upped the ante on one of my favorite parts of the first book, which was delightful talking plants. This book tells the story of someone referenced in the first book - the woman who magically awakened that novel’s plant sidekick - and it tells what happened to her. Because this is a romatasy, there is a romance between the protagonist and a taciturn man with hidden depths who is an excellent gardener and a pretty good baker. This book would be great to read with a cup of tea with honey on a snowy day in front of a fireplace. I really enjoyed it

To Shape a Dragon's Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose

 To Shape a Dragon's Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose

Why did I wait so long to read this book???

I never heard of this book until the 2024 Hugo Award nominations came out, and it was nominated for (and later won!) the Lodestar Award (and the author was nominated for the Astounding Award). Based on the description it didn’t sound that exciting to me. It sounded like a big standard magical school/dragon riding book, and I’ve read so many of them over the years. But when the author won the Astounding Award in 2025, I decided I should probably give it a shot. 

And I’m so glad I did! This was not like every other underdog magical school outsider story I’ve read before. It was a delightfully nuanced tale of an indigenous girl going to the school in the white European/American coded society’s dragon training academy. The characters were interesting and well rounded (although the protagonist came off as a little too capable at times). The world building was excellent and I loved every minute of it! I’m very much looking forward to the sequel!

The First Thousand Trees by Premee Mohamed

Five years ago, I wrote in a review of Premee Mohamed’s first book: “After reading this book, I will definitely pick up the next book by Premee Mohamed.  This author has a great deal of potential and I look forward to seeing what else she writes.” I am so glad I stuck with this author because she has improved immensely and now she is a must-read when I see she has something new out.

When NetGalley listed this new novella by Ms. Mohamed, I was happy to check it out, and I was even happier when I realized it was a third book in the same series as The Annual Migration of Clouds, a post-apocalyptic novella that was set at a repurposed university where survivors were ekeing out an existence and many people were infected with a parasite of some sort that changes their behavior to push self-preservation. 

This book picks up with the friend of the protagonist of the last two books. In the first book, he had frozen on a hunt and gotten someone killed. This book starts with him having left his settlement looking for a place to start over. He seeks out an uncle who is living in a very strict community. Once again, the story went in some directions I wasn’t expecting, and this book ended up being much more violent and brutal than I had anticipated. The protagonist is not the most likable of characters, but the writing is wonderful. I’m still not sure I know what this book was trying to tell me, but I enjoyed the ride. 

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.