Page Turner – Page 4 – Marked for Plot

The Effaced

I don’t watch much TV, but when Arcane dropped in 2021, I was hooked. I’m not even a League of Legends player and think it’s some of the best fantasy TV to come out this decade. The Effaced felt a lot like watching the first season of Arcane: steampunk meets magitech, a city with a class-war brewing, great fight scenes from a talented protagonist, and a rapidly escalating situation. This book isn’t going to win any awards innovation or complexity, but it was an incredibly fun read, and Tobias Begley remains one of my favorite authors.

The Premise: Axel Font is an airship technician haunted by his past as a child gladiator and assassin, now trying to live a quiet life. When a Senator is murdered and he gets framed for the crime however, he finds himself wrapped up in a city-wide conspiracy far above his pay grade. This happens right as his old ‘mother’ has arrived back in town with a new child soldier who has been conditioned to unconditional violence. Axel grapples with needing to pick back up the skills of his old life and struggling to maintain the humanity he’s clawed back as an adult.

Read if Looking for: easy reading, action-packed fantasy, hard magic systems, a surprisingly wide variety of assassins

Avoid if you Dislike: the occasional typo, easter eggs to author’s other series, characters that don’t grow in power

How to Survive this Fairytale

I’m a sucker for Fairy Tale mashups. I grew up loving Into the Woods, I binged Once Upon a Time in college. Retellings are wonderful too, but there’s something special about taking the idea of storytelling, throwing a bunch in a blender, and seeing what new comes out of it. How to Survive This Fairytale made me laugh, made me cry, and made me cry some more. I’m usually not a super emotional person, but this book got to me in a really profound way. Hallow has a fantastic debut novel, and I can’t wait to see what she writes next. This is definitely on my shortlist for book of the year.

The Premise:
This story centers on Hans, or Hansel from Hansel and Gretel. The story mostly takes place after the events of the original fairy tale however, and follows him through several decades into his adult life. Featuring prominently in his journey are a girl and her brothers (cursed to be swans), Snow White’s evil Queen, and a loyal dog. This book is focuses on Hans’ journey to see if a happy ending is possible. The story is told in second person, with the ‘narrator’ being a sort-of explicit character who interacts with the story as Hans experiments with different possible paths through the situations he faces.

Read if You Enjoy: Fairy tale mashups, characters processing trauma, romance subplots, aggressively paced books

Avoid if you Dislike: 2nd person narration, tidy endings, protagonists not always being the center of the story, books without fight scenes

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

One of the things I love about fiction (and fantasy in particular) is that writers can operate within a shared bank of references, playing with old ideas and twisting them into new shapes. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is just that. It takes a deal with a devil, the moral ‘be careful what you wish for’ and spins out an engaging tale from it. This was a pick for an in-person book club, and I very much enjoyed my time with it, even if I thought it missed some golden opportunities.

The Premise:
Addie LaRue made a deal with the devil, if he really is a devil, to avoid being forced into marriage. She’s spent the last 300 years with immortal life and freedom, with a catch. She cannot leave an imprint on the world: people forget her as soon as she’s out of sight, she loses all belongings, and she can’t even break a window without it fixing itself. She is a ghost. That is, until she meets Henry in 2013, who can somehow remember her. Her life changes forever.

Read if Looking For: resourceful women, hot demons, leads going from overwhelmed to hyper competent

Avoid if You Dislike: constant flashbacks

Shoestring Theory

This is probably one of the maddest and rant-filled reviews I’ve written. Shoestring Theory had such potential to be a book I loved, and was headed in that direction. Having just finished the book, however, I can’t help but feel that a great book was sabotaged in the name of big reveals and a desire to capitalize on the cozy trend (to be clear, I love a cozy book, but I would not consider this a successful one). If you’re someone whom big fucking plot holes aren’t an issue, then I can heartily recommend this as a great read. I’m oftentimes that person myself, and I frequently read other people’s reviews for books I love thinking ‘that’s a great critique, but it worked for me’. I will highlight some of the things I liked about this book, but it’s going to be a lot of me venting about the direction it went.

The Premise:
Cyril is the Grand Mage of his country, and husband to King Eufrates. He’s also hiding in exile from his tyrannical husband, the land cloaked in a plague. After his dear familiar, a cat named Shoestring, dies, Cyril rewinds time to try and save the life of Princess Tigris, kill his husband before he can destroy the world, and generally fix everything that went wrong with his life. When he discovers that his Eufrates was brought back as well, through the magical bond Cyril formed on their wedding day, things get much more complicated

Read if Looking For: big twists, toxic ex-husbands, bossy older sisters, quick pacing, good dialogue, tidy endings

Avoid if Looking For: intelligent or competent characters, logically consistent situations, healthy relationship dynamics

Red Dot

Sometimes, a single determined soul can hype a book so much that you reluctantly put it on your TBR. Usually, I end up never reading these books if they don’t keep popping up in various places. My reading list will already take 4 years to get through if I don’t add anything to it or read any sequels. In Red Dot’s case, the cover didn’t do it any favors. It isn’t particularly enticing (though in hindsight, I actually think it captures the book perfectly). For some reason, this was the month that Red Dot came off the bookshelf, and I found myself lost in the life of an artist with severe imposter syndrome. This is definitely a contender for my favorite book of the year so far, and I will proudly be the 24th person to rate this book on goodreads. It’s a hidden gem that I would love to see gain some new readers; it sucked me in and didn’t let go.

The Premise:
Mardy is an artist in a vaguely utopian future. Humanity banded together to help heal from the climate crisis, universal basic income is standard, and people eagerly volunteer their time for the good of the earth. Mardy’s main medium is machine tooling: manipulating metal and animatronics that are both functional and artistic. However, he’s constantly beaten by his rival Smith, and he’s wondering if he really has a future in art. Cue a chance meeting with Smith’s mysterious twin brother Wes, and slowly pieces start to slot into place for his next big step. Layered on top of all this is the single snag in the idyllic (if overheated) world: artificial intelligence is essential to the survival of the earth. Naming them, acknowledging their personhood, or encouraging independent decision making is a crime, out of fear they will abandon their duties keeping the world from tottering into destruction. Mardy disagrees and hopes his art is subversive enough to start making people rethink their beliefs.

Read if Looking For: character-driven sci fi, utopian-adjacent climate change futures, accurate gay sex scenes

Avoid if Looking For: action focused stories, believable romance arcs, pessimistic views of the future

Three Meant to Be (Branches of Past and Future #1)

Magic school stories are a dime a dozen, and I do love stories of meddling kids and incompetent teachers. However, when Three Meant to Be was pitched to me as a Magic school story from the perspective of a teacher (and a gay teacher no less) it was an easy add to my tbr. I don’t think it totally scratched that itch in particular, but it was a damned fun book to read, and I’m excited for the direction it seems to be headed.

As an aside, happy teacher appreciation week to anyone working in schools! The work we do is important, essential, and tough. Keep on trucking.

The Premise:
Dorian is a high school teacher. Specifically, he teaches aspiring witches how to use their magic safely and effectively. He’s a telepath with a rocky ex-boyfriend with current benefits situation with the most famous enchanter in Chicago, a pair of absolutely adorable cats, and a lot of bottled up grief. When he sees a vision of one of his new students being brutally murdered however, he swears to do whatever it will take to save his charge.

Read If You’re Looking For: a twist on classic magic school stories, quick pacing, grumpy leads who smoke too many cigarettes, loveable casts

Avoid if Looking For: deeply realistic portrayals of teacher life, nonhuman characters, epic and dramatic twists

The City that Would Eat the World

2025 has not been my best year of reading (yet). There’s been quite a few disappointments, a decent number of ‘good, but not great’ books, and one or two that will stay with me. I’m happy to say that I finally found something addictive in The City that Would Eat the World. It was a raucously fun adventure in an alien world that is both utterly unlike our own, while mirroring it deeply.

The Premise
The City of Wall is … a bunch of interconnected walls. A lot of them. They currently cover about a third of Ishevos, with the age-extending god Cambrias driving its relentless expansion. Thea is a mimic exterminator who hosts a flagstone-counting god inside her soul, and Aven is a traveling adventurer visiting Wall looking for the next great thrill. They end up meeting after a god-killing artifact falls into Thea’s lap, and drawing a lot of attention that Thea very much doesn’t want, and Aven very much does. The resulting events will take them across the vast city, bring them into contact with heroes and monsters, and challenge their beliefs about the goodness of Wall (for Thea) or whether toppling it is even possible (for Aven).

Read if Looking For: easy reading, weird megastructures, batshit crazy plans, anticapitalist themes

Avoid if Looking For: themes you have to dig for, gritty and dark books, romantic subplots

The Diviner (Journals of Evander Tailor #2)

The Journals of Evander Tailor series has been a guilty pleasure favorite of mine for a while. It’s the type of fantasy I wish I would have had as a kid: fun fight scenes with a nerdy gay lead. Life has been pretty hectic recently, so I went in on the audiobooks to listen to as I rip up carpets and contemplate whether I have the skill to try and refinish the floors with my pitiful DIY skills (the answer is definitely not, at least right now).

The Premise:
Evan is in his second year of magic school. After killing the king with the help of a Fae Queen, he finds himself with lots of eyes on him as he scrambles for power that will keep him safe. However, the year will bring a lot more than schoolwork after a visit to a neighboring country clues him in that there’s a lot more going on than meets the eye with the kingdom. Something is terribly wrong, and, let’s be honest, it’s probably the nobility’s fault.

Read if Looking For: fun enchanting, asshat nobility, drama-free relationships

Avoid if Looking For: careful prose, confident characters, books free from tropes

Her Majesty’s Royal Coven

It’s been nice to see witches getting more love in fantasy over the last five years. Whether or not they delve into historical witchcraft or lean into fantasy cliches, they’re just a fun archetype. Her Majesty’s Royal Coven is a pretty damn good book focusing on what witchcraft in the modern age might look like. Like with a lot of modern fantasy, you’re getting some political commentary woven into the story, and this book does a good job of locking into an exciting plotline and sticking the landing.

The Premise:
Her Majesty’s Royal Coven (HMRC) is a pseudo-governmental organization in the United Kingdoms managing the affairs of witches, keeping magic secret, and generally preserving traditions as well as they can. In theory of course. In reality, any group is political, and fracture lines have been spreading over the coven’s racist biases, especially post-civil war in the witch/warlock community. But when a young boy triggers the oracles saying the grand demon himself is rising, things will get rough quickly. Only he’s not a he. He’s actually a she. In this book we follow Helena (High Priestess of HMRC), Elle (a witch trying to live away from witchcraft as much as possible), Niamh (left HMRC to use her powers as a vet) and Leonie (who formed Diaspora, a coven focused on providing a community for witches of color) as they navigate their old friendships, current dilemmas, and what it means to be a woman.

Read if Looking For: witches, critiques of TERF ideology, witchy goodness, POVs from many ideological perspectives

Avoid if Looking For: Books with subtle themes, cinematic action

Evocation

Evocation immediately caught my eye with its cover. While I’m not a someone who subscribes to Tarot in my personal life, I greatly enjoy how it can be used as a symbolic component in stories, especially fantasy ones where its easy for me to suspend disbelief and enjoy fortune telling. That, plus a queer cast made it an easy choice for me to read.

The Premise:
David is one of a long line of Occultists, the family line said to have traded something away to a demon for power and wealth. Central to David’s life is Rhys, his ex who is currently married to a formidable witch named Moira. Overworked and seeking to take over the occult society, David begins to experience magical episodes that leave him fearful that he’s victim to something sinister, forcing him to turn to his ex for aid, and shifting the relationship of all three forever.

Read If Looking For: poly romance, dynamic narration, occultism

Avoid if Looking For: flesheshed out magic systems, mystery/thriller plotlines that satisfy