Wayward Bookshelf

Alchemy and a Cup of Tea by Rebecca Thorne I have to say I was happy to get my hands on an ARC of this one after the cliffhanger ending in book 3! (Thanks Netgalley!) In this one Kianthe & Reyna find that their roles as high-profile figures begins to catch up with the little slice of home they've carved out for themselves in Tawney. From kidnapping, conferring with dragons, and hunting down alchemists, to city planning and tourist crowd control, this book really has a little bit of everything. As these books have gone along, they have gotten decidedly less simple and cozy, but I guess that's true to life. As soon as we find something to settle into, something else comes along to shake us up. I really enjoy how the found family that began in book 1 has continued to grow in size and strength of bond. As well as the discussions on magic, it's origins, and uses. The scope of the book has it feeling a little scattered or less focused, as there are multiple pulls on Reyna a...

Brigands & Breadknives by Travis Baldree This third installment in the Legends & Lattes takes a bit of a detour from the cozy vibes only routine, and follows our favorite rattkin bookseller as she goes on a wandering quest in search of that missing something when her life as a bookseller starts to feel a little stale. The tale has a little of a T. Kingfisher flavor to it in my opinion, it's like following a party on a dungeons and dragons campaign with a small splash of horror, but still manages to contain lots of cozy moments around the campfire with humor and thoughtful conversations. I have loved the entire Legends and Lattes trilogy so far, and while this one was a little different with some more adventuring and higher stakes, it felt very true to Fern's character. I loved meeting Fern back in book 2, and was thrilled when she got to take the spotlight. I also really liked the new characters introduced, and was especially entertained by Zyll - the chaos goblin. Wh...

Monk and Robot by Becky Chambers I first read the Monk & Robot books as the individual novellas when they came out, and absolutely fell in love with them. The gentle hopefulness of an imagined future, and the meandering conversation about nature, life, meaning and everything along the way were so healing and charming. I gave copies of those books to so many friends, and recommended them right and left. They are a couple of my all-time favorites. So I was thrilled when they packaged the two novellas together in this lovely paperback edition! It makes them more affordable, and even easier to gift. Set in a world where, in the pre-story, AI became sentient and humanity actually did the decent thing by setting them free, in book 1 we follow a tea monk named Dex as they travel around visiting different communities, until they eventually feel pulled to try something a little different. In learning more about the world, and meeting some new characters along the way, we discover a lush ...

The Enchanted Greenhouse by Sarah Beth Durst Admittedly I am in my cozy fantasy era, and I love to garden, so this book ticked ALL of the boxes for me: Lovable characters who do lots of gentle growth while finding their place in the world, plus gardening talk, sentient plants, and a magical greenhouse on a remote island. Sounds like the perfect place to escape the world, and this book is a lovely little literary getaway in its own right. The Enchanted Greenhouse is a companion follow up to The Spellshop , and while it works just as well as a stand-alone story, continuing readers can enjoy mentions of favorite characters from the first book. Like Spellshop, the Enchanted Greenhouse manages to be a gentle tale set during a time of general upheaval. It starts off with a bit of a dramatic bang, which might put readers off if they're hoping for cozy vibes only, but it does even out pretty quickly as the tale goes along so I'd say to stick with it. Because the real story is about w...

Omni and the Blazed Boy by Benjamin Ver Burg & Sheri Ver Burg This debut novel offers quite a lot to middle grade readers! It's got engaging main characters, dragon bonding (and hopefully riding in the coming books?), a magic school, creative world building, an ensemble of characters who end up being fast friends, and some good puzzles and mysteries that need to be solved. My personal favorite element was the nature of the world itself - it is unique and I imagine would be very intriguing for young readers. And as a reader who enjoys all things dragons, I also really liked the method of finding a dragon to bond with, and the classification of dragons by the type of magical breath they possess. There are a few elements that will feel familiar to the more avid young scifi/fantasy fans: the magic school and after-hours shenanigans that ensue are not unlike what we see at Hogwarts. And in an effort not to spoil any of the fun surprises the story holds, suffice it to say there are...

The Viscount Says Yes by Sarah Wallace Viscount says yes is the 6th in the Meddle & Mend series, and involves characters we've already come to know and love from the earlier books planning a union that we've hoped would happen for some time. This was a very cozy read with lots of time spent planning the details of how our beloved characters will eventually make a home together as they gradually get more comfortable spending time with each other. There's actually very little meddling from the peripheral characters in this installment, and a lot of just offering support and kind advice. It was gentle and hopeful, and I so enjoyed reading it. The Meddle & Mend series has always felt like a cozy little safe place for my reader heart to land, but this book in particular was so restful. I'm in a season of life (mama to a newborn) where I'm reading much slower than usual as I try to sneak in a chapter here and there, but I still decided to stay up late to finish ...

Tea You at the Altar by Rebecca Thorne I went into this thinking it was the final book in the series, but in case there are any other prospective readers making the same error I did, Tomes & Tea it is a quartet and not a trilogy so there is still one more book coming! Which I'm honestly pretty excited about because I find these to be fun reads. I started reading this series as a cozy fantasy, and while it definitely still has some of those elements and the general vibe of coziness, the stakes have gotten a little too high in the continuing installments for me to really classify it as 'cozy fantasy' anymore. They're still a lot of fun to read, but I wanted to make the point in my review that there are some bigger world events at play, and our heroines play a direct role in those events. Things I really enjoyed: -More dragons! And I especially liked the discussion of dragons/magic/belief that happens around the reappearance of dragons in this world. - Reyna gets a ...

Fiasco by Constance Fay This is the second in the Uncharted Hearts series, and Fay has proven that they really know how to write a prickly femme MC with a soft center. Like Temper from book 1, Cyn is on her own as a bounty hunter, and she has developed a tough outer shell to protect herself. The only beings she seems to let in are her pet lizard and her feisty older neighbor. Cyn has long wanted to catch the kidnapper who killed her cousin, and when an opportunity comes up to resume the hunt, she joins the crew of the Calamity and follows the trail to her home planet, which she hasn't visited since her cousin's death. It was fun to be back on board the Calamity (from book one), to see the crew through Cyn's eyes, and to watch them each offer acceptance to the prickly bounty hunter in their own ways as they begin to work together. There were a couple fun plot twists that made this a truly engaging read, and a solid on-board romantic thread to keep things interesting. As al...

Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher I enjoyed a lot of details in the book, but the thing I loved most was our narrator. Thornhedge is a fairytale inspired by Sleeping Beauty, told from the perspective of the fairy who gives a gift to the princess on her christening day, and things don't go exactly to plan. Our fairy is named Toadling, and she is so gentle and humble and determined not to do any harm and to right her past mistakes. I just loved her. Other characters are not exactly what you'd expect from the original tale either, the princess and the knight in particular have also undergone intriguing changes in this retelling. This tale also turns the original quest on its head by asking the question, 'what if some curses aren't meant to be broken?'. When the knight discovers Toadling's brambly hedge, that question is put to the test. Thornhedge may be a quick read, but it brings a fresh take to this familiar tale, and the focus is on the journey through the story, n...

Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales by Heather Fawcett This was more or less exactly what I'd hoped for from book 3 in this series! Emily continues to try and tackle problems using her scholarship and study, Wendell continues to be both fearsome and endearing by turns, and the majority of this book actually takes place in Faerie.  My only real complaint is that while I really appreciate how much our two have grown to trust each other to be competent in their own strengths, and it is very sweet to see them so in love, I did miss some of the bickering and banter that we saw in the first two books. I would have liked to have more of that, perhaps with a more playful or teasing tone as their relationship matured. I really enjoyed the nature of the problem that they were trying to solve, the stakes felt a little higher, and the application of storytelling and fairy tales applied to searching for a solution was excellent. And I especially liked spending more time getting to know...

Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear by Seanan McGuire Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear is an even-numbered installment in the Wayward Children series, and as such it is a portal fantasy in which we get to see one of the children first find their Door. This book follows Nadya, a Russian orphan who loves turtles. Without getting into spoilers, I really enjoyed Nadya's character. She's tough, confident, and fiercely independent. I especially liked the discussion around her being born with a physical disability, but she doesn't see herself as anything less than whole, regardless of how others might perceive her. The world that her Door leads to was pretty fascinating as well. I really liked the somewhat surreal quality of the environment and breathable atmosphere, and as always in McGuire's portal worlds, there are inherent dangers that come along with the more wondrous elements. I would recommend this book for those who have enjoyed the Wayward Children series thus far,...

Somewhere Beyond the Sea by T.J. Klune An excellent follow-up to The House on the Cerulean Sea, this book is chock full of this found family fiercely protecting the space they've carved out for themselves, with plenty of reminders that our choices and actions are what define our character, and not the stereotypes or labels the world might want to put on us. Linus & Arthur have filed paperwork to adopt the children at Marsyas island, but the government decides to throw a few more hurdles their way instead. I enjoyed the fact that the children have learned enough from Arthur that they start expecting him to follow his own advice instead of bowing before unfair restrictions, and they regularly inspire hope through their creative shenanigans and refusal to be anyone but who they are. There are a few unexpected surprises, and the ending and epilogue were incredibly satisfying. This was a delightful read imbued with hope and the determination that even inspiring a small change in t...

Fire Spells Between Friends by Sarah Wallace Wallace & Callahan have done it again with another lovable duo in their Fae & Human Relations series! This book primarily follows the story Torquil Pimpernal-Smith, an editor of a gossip publication not unlike that of Lady Whistledown, and one of their main subjects for gossip, Emrys Wrenwhistle - an heir who is determined to find a partner during the Season. Meanwhile, Torquil also happens to be thrust into a more public role because of their half-fae, half-human pedigree. In a London that is just starting to figure out what it means to integrate its fae and human members in both social and systemic ways, this book builds on the work of the first book with encouraging more fae/human courtship and spending time with the Council rewriting Society's magical testing system to allow for humans, fae, and fae-humans to test under a rubric that takes the unique magical style of each group into account. As always, I most enjoyed the di...

A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher I enjoyed this book! It had a slower build-up to a pretty wild ending. I didn't read it particularly fast at first, but found myself really enjoying the last third or so. Things I liked: - Minor horror elements that didn't squick me out. As someone who's not a fan of horror in particular, but appreciates fantasy with some darker bits as long as I can stomach it, finding an author who's able to strike that balance is always exciting. - Romance and true friendship between the older characters. The MC in this book is a YA character, but she's not part of the romantic thread, nor is she at all interested in romance because she's focused on surviving with a monster for a mother. The story's one true romance is between a couple that reads as being somewhere in their 50's-60's, and I thought it was very sweet. And the friendships that ring as the most lasting and true are also between three middle-aged ladies. I...

Rules for Ghosting by Shelly Jay Shore My rating: 4 of 5 stars Rules for Ghosting is a charming little book set around a family run Jewish funeral home. It has bits of found family & romance along with a healthy dose of what it means to do life and death as part of a community. There's a pretty wide and diverse cast of characters who are on the whole very real and relatable. Our main character is a trans young man named Ezra who is in the process of learning to recognize his own worth, while figuring out which boundaries to hold and which to let go of. He's also just a little psychic, which is made more interesting by the fact that his family runs a funeral home, AND he's also starting to have feelings for a widower. The plot was fairly messy, but mostly in a good way. It felt like real life, stuff happens, and sometimes it all happens at once. This book is just a slice of life where Ezra is in a season of a lot happening. Families are messy sometimes. That said, it...