Page Turner – Marked for Plot

The Wolf and His King – Dripping with Intentionality

This book was a match made in heaven for me. Queer yearning? Check. Unconventional and bespoke prose? Check. Thematic depth without being preachy? Check. The Wolf and His King I’ve read in a long time. I didn’t love how they tackled writing the ending, but The Wolf and His King is a book I will be happily shoving into the hands of my friends.

As a note, those looking for a traditional Romantasy story will be disappointed. There are absolutely romantic elements to the tale, but you won’t find the story focusing on Bisclavret and the King’s developing relationship. The book is more interested in each of their personal journeys, despite their mutual affection for each other. Like other books that are sort-of-technically Romances that don’t read like most books in the genre, The Wolf and His King is best viewed as a book that happens to include some romance elements, which I think will help temper some misplaced expectations based on how the book has been pitched.

Read If Looking For: dreamlike prose, characters exploring their own self-doubt, a marriage of theme and structure

Avoid If Looking For: critical examinations of monarchies, fleshed out female characters, leads who are proactive

Comparable Media: Song of Achilles, This is How You Lose the Time War, Spear (by Nicola Griffith)

Hench – Revenge is Best Served With Excel Spreadsheets

I don’t do many rereads, but when I saw the audiobook for Hench was available without a wait time, I couldn’t resist checking it out. Villain, the sequel, releases later this year, and I will definitely be putting it on my reading list. I think I’m a little more hesitant about some of the thematic work in Hench than I was during my first read, but this is a rock solid revenge story that stands out in a cluttered Superhero landscape.

Read If: clever characters work for you, unreliable narrators are a plus, you think iguanas deserve only the best

Avoid If: you dislike critiques of policing, body horror makes you squeamish, you demand nuanced and thorough themes

Comparable Media: The Boys, Watchmen, I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself

The Inheritance – My New Addiction

How have I never read an Ilona Andrews book before? Why have I delayed long on picking up one of their books? Where can I find more? These are the questions running through my head as I type this. It is 11:00 pm on a Sunday night. Tomorrow morning my dog will wake me up at 5:30 for a morning walk before I try and get a quick gym workout in, followed by the daily onslaught of questions that comes with teaching 11 year olds. My bedtime was an hour and a half ago, and I probably won’t fall asleep until midnight.

The Inheritance touched something inside me. Not anything particularly deep or meaningful. No, this book touched the ‘holy shit that was so much fun’ part of my brain, which is a part of my reading life that’s been a bit neglected recently. I want more, and I want it now. The rest of the series has not yet been published, which is a grave injustice for which I have no remedy.

Read If: you want popcorn fantasy with a middle-aged mother in focus, badass German Shepherds sounds appealing,

Avoid If: overly tragic backstories piss you off, you want characters to slowly grow in power and skill, you’ve got a phobia of bugs and spiders

Comparable Media: Solo Levelling, Mage Errant, Dungeon Crawler Carl

Drome – A Modern Ode to Mythic Hero Stories

Drome is probably the platonic ideal of comics for me. It was adrenaline injected directly into my brain. I couldn’t stop thinking about it when I tried opening up my current novel. I had meant to spread this read out over five days – the book is split into five sections. Instead I finished it in a single day that was also filled with book club, yard work, and a friend’s Irish folk music concert. While Drome doesn’t quite top the emotional resonance of The Magic Fish, it captures so many of the things I love in Fantasy and Comics. It honors mythology without being a pale imitation, it leverages simplicity for power, and it uses its visual medium as an asset to be leveraged. Drome is on a lot of ‘Best of 2025’ lists in the comic world, and it’s clear why.

For those of you who don’t read many comics, I cannot stress enough that Drome is absolutely worth checking your public library for. Unlike many of my favorite comics, this one doesn’t have the same density, making it a very low time commitment for those who don’t spend much time with comics.

Read If: you love reading about mythological heroes, enjoy visual experimentation, want a grand story that can be read in a single sitting

Avoid If: simple and predictable plots annoy you, you need a simple happy ending, lack of dialogue will hinder your enjoyment of a comic

Comparable Media: Tongues, The Spear Cuts Through Water, Hyperion

Beyond Redemption – Addictive and Epic Grimdark

Historically, Grimdark hasn’t really been my speed. Plenty of books I’ve enjoyed, but the hopelessness and gore kept me from picking up the sequels. Beyond Redemption has convinced me that, as with my Horror journey – I might not dislike Grimdark as much as I thought. Certainly it’s reminded me that I need to read more by Fletcher, because I adored The Storm Beneath the World. Beyond Redemption is quick moving, intense, and dark without going too far. The mix won’t be right for everyone, but it worked for me.

Read If You: like an innovative premise executed to its fullest potential, don’t mind a little backstabbing or cannibalism, enjoy dry humor that doesn’t overdo itself

Avoid If You: want heroics, characters who have their shit together, positive representation of … pretty much anything.

Comparable Media: The Storm Beneath the World, First Law, Angels Before Man

An Inheritance of Magic – Featherweight and Enjoyable Urban Fantasy

An Inheritance of Magic has been buzzing around my circles as one of the better Urban Fantasy series to come out in the past few years. This isn’t a subgenre I spend a ton of time with, but I’ve found that widely loved series tend to be reliably enjoyable for me (other than Dresden Files), and An Inheritance of Magic certainly lived up to that premise. It’s not perfect, clearly wants to prepare you for a long series, and seems to be a solid and readable ‘zero to hero’ story.

Read if: you enjoy reading about plucky underdogs making it work, are in favor of Orca whales crashing billionaire Yachts off the coast of Spain, are looking for something tropey and simple

Avoid if: comedically evil villains put you off, you dislike explanations of magic, religious logic problems put you off

Comparable Media: Tarot Sequence, Arcane Ascension, Witch Hat Atelier

Wynd – A Casual and Delightful Middle Grade Adventure

I picked up the first book in this series as I collected books for a class on Queer Comics and Cartoons. It didn’t end up making the cut as a whole-class read, but it quickly found its way into my classroom library and has become quite popular. While the series isn’t quite finished – final book is releasing this year! – I figured finishing book 4 was enough to write a review about the series more generally. It won’t tickle the fancy of anyone looking for serious or deeply thematic fare, but it’s fun and quick and a truly delightful kids book that I think many adults would enjoy as a casual read.

Read if: you love classic fantasy tropes, comics with vibrant illustrations are your style, faeries-as-bugs sounds fun

Avoid if: simplistic morality will bug you, you dislike chosen ones & prophecies, fantasy racism isn’t a worldbuilding trope that works for you

Comparable Media: Fablehaven, Septimus Heap, Cece Rios, Amulet

The Strength of the Few – An Addictive & Hollow Sequel

The Will of the Many was a bit like fast food. I was unable to put it down, burning through the book in little more than a day. I loved every second of it. Afterwards, I began to notice that the story wasn’t as filling as I thought while reading. I knew I wanted to read the sequel, but I entered with reservations. The Strength of the Few was almost exactly what I thought it would be: fun when little thought was applied, but very difficult to ignore some glaring issues that kept rearing their heads. Will I buy the final installment when it comes out? As with the Pokemon games, my answer is always no. As with Pokemon, I’ll probably break that answer as soon as the book releases and end up disappointed.

While this review doesn’t focus on specific plot points, it will spoil the nature of the twist revealed in the Epilogue of Book 1. This information is also located on the back cover of the book, but I figured I should give a heads up.

Read if: You want to see Vis keep being awesome in three worlds instead of just one, expansive scope is important to you, there’s even more noble women falling in love with Vis

Avoid if: You were hoping for a political plotline of Vis working from the inside, exploring his moral qualms with Will is important to you

Comparable Titles: Red Rising, The Name of the Wind, Ironbound, Mistborn

Children of Time

I meant to read this book ages ago, but my dad (who never reads) picked it up off my bookshelf while visiting and took it back to Kansas. I finally resigned myself to not getting it back and grabbed another from a used bookstore. I’ve only read one other book from Tchaikovsky, and this confirmed that I like his books a lot, but they’re probably only for when I’m in the mood for something on the more breezy/readable end of things.

Read if Looking For: so many spiders, batshit crazy worldbuilding, spaceship politics

Avoid if Looking For: inhuman narration, stories focusing on first contact, messy thematic work

Striker V: Elements of Change

This was meant to be a book I read when I was on the treadmill, taking a break from curriculum writing, or when I couldn’t fall asleep. The type of story it didn’t matter much if I drifted in and out of. I was reading it on my cell phone, not even a damned e-reader. Striker V gripped me in the early chapters and didn’t let me go for a good long while. This novel examines Superheroes from a more person-first perspective than the standard, caring just as much about how humans would react to the constant violence of superhero activity as the fights themselves. It didn’t quite stick the landing, and I have some issues with the resolution of the story. However, it did things I haven’t seen much in superhero stories, and those bits felt just as interesting as The Watchmen.

Read if Looking For: mental health struggles, governmental bureaucracy (and sometimes humor), dystopian superheroes, happy endings

Avoid if Looking For: nuanced climaxes to nuanced conflicts, creative superhero powers, villains that make sense, tonal consistency