Alien abduction gets a bad rap. It usually goes like this: One kooky neighbor gets beamed up into a flying saucer and returns to earth different, full of interstellar knowledge. But what if the scale was bigger . . . a lot bigger? What if the aliens came to take us all away? In their massive novel The Mercy of Gods, the author duo known as James S.A. Corey takes the term “survival of the fittest” to a whole new level.
On the far-flung planet of Anjiin, Dafyd Alkhor has it pretty good. He may be a lowly research assistant, but he’s a part of the most prestigious scientific team in the academy. Renown and glory await, but then things take a bit of a turn. Seventeen shining alien starships appear in the sky, rapidly subdue human resistance and abduct the best and brightest to be brought back to the alien homeworld. These aliens, the Carryx, have conquered and assimilated numerous species into their society over the centuries, building a veritable empire across galactic space. But even a species as powerful as the Carryx has an enemy that threatens to destroy them. Dafyd and his team are soon caught in a dangerous game: Find a way to help the Carryx defeat their foe or be discarded as unuseful. After all, for the Carryx, usefulness is survival.
Corey demonstrates a key skill when it comes to expansive sci-fi: balance. No single part of The Mercy of Gods feels unattended to, and details arise on the page just as the reader wonders about them. When the humans are trapped in their holding cells on the alien ship, Corey explains how the aliens account for food, water and other needs. He clearly loves dreaming up all the smart and sometimes grotesque ways one species might attempt to care for another. The interpersonal relationships of Dafyd’s research team are similarly balanced: The shifting, intimate perspectives from various members of the team bring readers close to the pain that would come with such an upheaval.
Corey is the author of The Expanse, an acclaimed sci-fi series that subsequently became an acclaimed TV show. As one would expect from such an accomplished writer, there’s a confidence present throughout The Mercy of Gods: It’s alternately thrilling, intimate, thought-provoking and inventive. In this first installment of a new series, Corey deftly creates a new universe of alien strangeness for humans to test themselves against. I’m excited to see how far we can go in future entries.
Thrilling, intimate, thought-provoking and inventive, The Mercy of Gods is a well-crafted start to a new sci-fi series from the author of The Expanse.
Shaun Hamill’s fiction jolts the reader with an immediate sense of ambition, a sense that they are about to be not just immersed, but plunged into something enormous that nevertheless keeps a grip on its humanity. With his follow-up to A Cosmology of Monsters, The Dissonance, Hamill once again retains that massive scope while telling a deeply felt story of loss, love and a chance at redemption, solidifying his place as one of genre fiction’s brightest rising stars.
In their teenage years, Hal, Erin and Athena were introduced to an obscure and powerful magical system known as the Dissonance. They spent their high school summers being tutored by a local professor in their hometown of Clegg, Texas, learning the right way to wield the uncommon and often frightening power that stemmed from their own negative emotions. Then tragedy struck, leaving the trio missing a friend and separated by time, grief and a disconnection from the magic they once shared.
Two decades later, Hal, Erin and Athena reunite in Clegg as the 20-year memorial for the event that rent them apart looms and strange happenings rock the landscape around them. Together with a local teen named Owen, who is caught up in a supernatural mystery of his own, the trio hurtle toward something dark, something that could spell the end of everything or be the beginning of their path back from the brink.
Hamill’s story is packed with fantasy and horror delights, from dark rituals in cemeteries to monsters in the forest to powerful swords that were once thought to be merely mythical. The sense that these characters are caught in the midst of something much bigger than themselves, are being buffeted on all sides by something titanic, is immediate, thrilling and seductive. But even as supernatural weather and the realities of living in a magical world are ever present, the characters always come first. Hal, Athena and Erin emerge as fully formed people carrying heavy burdens that are simultaneously fantastical and relatable, their emotions nearly tangible thanks to Hamill’s direct and page-turning prose.
The Dissonance will hook you with its phantasmagoria of dark imagery, but it will keep you reading because it’s a story about how the shared traumas of our youths can both shape us and save us. It’s fantasy, horror, a coming-of-age journey and so much more.
A phantasmagoria of dark imagery that never loses sight of its human core, The Dissonance solidifies Shaun Hamill’s place as one of genre fiction's brightest rising stars.
Sometime during the bleak 11th century, 17-year-old Roscille’s father sends her away to marry Macbeth, the fact that she does not wish to leave the land of her birth inconsequential to father’s need for allies. The large, brutish Thane looks “born right from the land of Glammis itself, right out of the earth,” and Roscille senses no warmth from him—only deep, unending cruelty.
Macbeth wants to marry Roscille for one reason: her magic. Roscille wears a veil at all times to hide her eyes, which can compel mortal men to do as she wishes. That power, combined with the witches Macbeth keeps chained beneath his castle, can help him fulfill the numerous prophecies about him and improve his political position. But Roscille does not wish to be his partner nor share his marital bed, to “submit herself to him like all the world’s women have before,” and as she fearfully starts to try and pull the strings of power, it sets off a chain of events that could both destroy the few people she cares about and force her to join the witches in the cold and the dark.
Author Ava Reid (Juniper and Thorn, The Wolf and the Woodsman) seems unconcerned with exploring the original themes and dynamics of the Scottish play. Instead, Macbeth is used as set dressing for a story about a young girl wed into terrible circumstances, a decision that will please fans of historical-inspired horror more than it will Shakespeare aficionados. Roscille’s main goal is to manipulate her way out of sharing Macbeth’s marital bed; unlike her theatrical counterpart, she is not concerned with power outside of how it keeps her safe. Despite the signs of distress and uncertainty Macbeth shows early on, any nuances in the Thane’s character vanish as he becomes a leader consumed by foolish and cruel ambition, a misandrist caricature that feels vaguely anti-Scottish and eradicates any moral complexity in Reid’s retelling.
Reid’s attention to stark, dark historical details combined with Roscille’s constant fear and anxiety (“her mind writhes with possibilities, like maggots in rotten meat”) gives Lady Macbeth an unearthly, nightmarish quality. Fans of the romance in Reid’s previous works will not find it here. Though Roscille does get a few moments of reprieve in her conversations with a spindly yet protective hagseed prince—”hagseed” meaning the son of a witch, and thus immune to Roscille’s eyes—Lady Macbeth is a horror novel about survival. Roscille has heard stories about sexual assault, spends the entire book fearing it and ultimately endures being raped by her husband as well as threats and physical abuse from men she once considered manipulable allies. Roscille feels herself going mad, though mileage may vary on whether readers find this ever-present danger thematically appropriate or wearying. Only in the last few chapters, as Roscille begins to understand her power, does retribution both magical and personal arrive.
Readers seeking stories of abuse survivors finally conquering their abuser and fans of grimdark historical fantasy will find Lady Macbeth elegantly written and right up their alley.
Readers seeking stories of abuse survivors finally conquering their abuser and fans of grimdark historical fantasy will find Lady Macbeth elegantly written and right up their alley.
A sorceress able to take control of others’ bodies and force them into submission, Evangeline is an unpredictable and often cruel force of nature in her daughter Cordelia’s life. And when Evangeline’s latest “arrangement” with a gentleman falls apart, the pair moves to the house of Evangeline’s next target, a squire named Samuel with a large estate and a too-generous nature. The only obstacle is Hester, the squire’s spinster sister. Hester takes one look at Evangeline and knows that she’s up to no good—and that Cordelia is as much at her mother’s mercy as Hester’s own brother is. Cordelia and Hester must work alongside a cadre of Hester’s closest friends (including Richard, her former lover) to stop Evangeline’s dark plot and rescue Cordelia from a life under her mother’s thumb.
Inspired at least in part by author T. Kingfisher’s love of Regency romance novels, A Sorceress Comes to Call is a delightful combination of the alien-yet-still-familiar worlds of Jane Austen and Bridgerton and the shadowy terror of the unknown. That might seem like an odd combination, but telling a story that takes inspiration from such a well-known setting affords Kingfisher with ready-made world building, giving her flexibility to focus instead on her leading women and the evil that has come to ruin them.
To say the two heroines of A Sorceress Comes to Call are unlikely is an extreme understatement. Cordelia is too timid: Left without guidance (and encouraging banter) from Hester, she would likely have continued to cower in her mother’s shadow. Lively and curmudgeonly, the 51-year-old Hester would have been content with her lot in life, bum knee and all, without the threat of Evangeline’s presence. Neither is the image of the “final girl” we’re taught to expect. But through gut-clenching scenes of body horror and moments of heartwarming humor, Kingfisher shows that even the most unlikely of heroines can prevail against the darkness
With both gut-clenching scenes and moments of heartwarming humor, A Sorceress Comes to Call is the Regency-fantasy-horror hybrid only T. Kingfisher could write.
Sylvie Cathrall’s debut fantasy, a series opener, offers an aquatic variation on dark academia, unfolding entirely through a series of letters and other documents. Set 1,000 years after a mysterious event called “the Dive” sent almost all of humankind underwater, A Letter to the Luminous Deep (12.5 hours) begins with reclusive E. Cidnosin writing to scholar Henerey Clel about her discovery of an unidentified “elongated fish.” Listeners soon discover, through letters between E.’s sister, Sophy, and Henerey’s brother, Vyerin, that E. and Henerey have disappeared under unexplained circumstances. Part mystery, part slowly building romance, Cathrall’s lyrical fantasy utilizes poignant details and quaint language to conjure an evocative underwater world. The use of different narrators for each letter writer—Claire Morgan, Kit Griffiths, Justin Avoth and Joshua Riley—is an effective way to differentiate the characters, and the novel’s unhurried pacing allows listeners to relish the art of letter writing.
Part mystery, part slowly building romance, Sylvie Cathrall's lyrical fantasy, A Letter to the Luminous Deep, utilizes poignant details and quaint language to conjure an evocative underwater world.
What are your bookstore rituals? For example, where do you go first in a store? I go first to the new in paperback section. I love the feel and heft of a paperback as well as its affordability and convenience. I also love reading staff recommendations, even for books that I’ve read before. It’s always fun to see where opinions align or diverge.
Tell us about your favorite library from when you were a child. My favorite library as a kid was the Shanghai Library. It’s on the same subway line as my family apartment, so it was always convenient to access. You had to arrive early to secure a study desk, but once you’d secured it, it was yours for the rest of the day. And the canteen on the ground floor had plenty of cheap but delicious and healthy meals.
While researching your books, has there ever been a librarian or bookseller who was especially helpful, or a surprising discovery among the stacks? When I was 13, I discovered a new favorite novel by chance—when a librarian accidentally shelved the wrong book to be placed on hold for me. The book was most likely adult, so some of the more mature content was a bit of a surprise for me, but at the same time, it opened my eyes to all adult themes of the world beyond my bubble. I learned about betrayal and suffering and hurt beyond forgiveness. I remember reading this book in one breathless sitting, then rereading the book again the very next day. Experiences like this made me want to become a writer, to touch someone’s life in such a tangible way.
“My special talent is balancing a coffee, sunglasses and several books all in one hand.”
Do you have a favorite bookstore or library from literature? One of my favorite books that I read as a child was The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. In the novel there is a hidden library in Barcelona, Spain, called the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, which of course inspired all sorts of daydreams of mine of stumbling upon secret magical libraries hidden within the cities I grew up in.
Do you have a bucket list of bookstores and libraries you’d love to visit but haven’t yet? What’s on it? Yes! I’ve always wanted to visit the Mill Valley Library in Northern California, which is a sunlit library within the woods, as well as the Beitou Branch Library in Taipei, Taiwan, which is Taiwan’s first green library and is absolutely gorgeous.
What’s the last thing you checked out from your library or bought at your local bookstore? Half a Lifelong Romance by Eileen Chang. She’s been recommended to me over a dozen times, but I’m only now getting into her work!
How is your own personal library organized? I once tried to organize my books by spine color before realizing I could never find anything I was looking for and it drove me bananas. Now they’re organized by genre and theme, with my favorite covers facing out.
Bookstore cats or bookstore dogs? Bookstore cats! I’m more of a dog person when it comes to the outdoors, but for bookstores, cats perfectly fit the vibe.
What is your ideal bookstore-browsing snack? I love a good iced Americano while browsing. My special talent is balancing a coffee, sunglasses and several books all in one hand.
The author of The Night Ends With Fire, a new fantasy romance inspired by the legend of Mulan, shares her bookstore habits and favorite library memories.
What are your bookstore rituals? For example, where do you go first in a store? I am a sucker for the display tables. I love to browse through the latest releases and staff picks, searching especially for books that haven’t yet come to my attention from another source. After that I tend to make a beeline for the paper products that are the standard equipment of this writer’s life: notebooks, pens, rulers, erasers. I’m forever on the lookout for the “perfect” pen, eraser, pencil bag—you name it. After these two basic needs are met, I trawl the history, mythology and nonfiction sections, which are my preferred genres. Final stop is always the cookbook section, because those books are heavy and I always want more than I can carry.
Tell us about your favorite library from when you were a child. The Montgomery County Library Bookmobile. It came once a week to a retail parking lot, opposite the elementary school I attended, that was pitted with potholes. It was in this rolling paradise, at the ripe age of 8 years old, that I was introduced to the interlibrary loan request. My elementary school librarian, Kay Wersler, taught me how to scour books for hints on other books to read and request them through the Bookmobile. I still remember the sound of the running engine, the climb up the stairs, the small selection of books to browse and the patient librarian who did not bat an eye when I asked for 19 biographies of Henry VIII.
“There are so many ‘lost’ treasures on the shelves of libraries all over the world.”
While researching your books, has there ever been a librarian or bookseller who was especially helpful, or a surprising discovery among the stacks? How much space do we have? As an academic who has been doing research since age 8 (see above), it would be far easier to tell you the librarians who weren’t especially helpful (exactly zero). I am enormously fond of the rare books and manuscripts librarians all over the world, but especially at the Bodleian Library and the British Library because I have relied most heavily on their collections. I owe an eternal debt of gratitude to the wise and generous former Keeper of Rare Books at the Bodleian, Julian Roberts, who was very kind when I discovered a John Dee book was missing from his collection and helped me locate another copy. This gave me something of a reputation in the academic community for finding strange items lurking in library collections—not only missing books but also a 16th-century bladder stone kept in a metal tube!
Do you have a favorite bookstore or library from literature? Marks & Co Antiquarian Booksellers, made famous in Helene Hanff’s 84 Charing Cross Road. I thought all English bookstores were like this one, and discovered to my enormous delight that they were still common in the England of the 1980s, when I visited the country as a solo traveler for the first time.
Do you have a “bucket list” of bookstores and libraries you’d love to visit but haven’t yet? What’s on it? It is my great dream to shelf read every collection of rare books and manuscripts in the world. This is, of course, not possible, but it is telling that it’s not a particular item or location that attracts me, but the ability to draw books down from the shelves and glance through them looking for interesting notes and marginalia. I include all local public libraries with historical materials in this count, by the way. There are so many “lost” treasures on the shelves of libraries all over the world. I love bringing them to light for their librarians and patrons.
What’s the last thing you checked out from your library or bought at your local bookstore? The last book I bought was at Moonraker Books on Whidbey Island, Washington. I went in to say hello to Josh Hauser and browse her impeccably curated selection of nonfiction and found a copy of The Connaught Bar: Cocktail Recipes and Iconic Creations by Agostino Perrone, Giorgio Bargiani and Maura Milia. Two of my favorite places collided there by the sea, as I have spent many happy hours in the care of Agostino, Giorgio and Maura (who has moved on to her next adventure now). I took a copy back to the house to inspire future celebrations.
How is your own personal library organized? By subject. It’s a working library, so there is none of this color-coding or last name malarkey. Give me a subject heading and I’m happy! My cookbooks are even organized this way.
Bookstore cats or bookstore dogs? Yes. And if there are bookstore horses, please let me know the address of the shop because I will be making a stop soon. With carrots.
What is your ideal bookstore-browsing snack? I hope you mean post-browsing snack! If so, then it is a cup of tea with milk and honey, and a small pastry of some sort. Madeleines, if they have them, an ordinary shortbread biscuit or chocolate chip cookie if they do not. Coffee walnut cake if I am in England and it is autumn. British bookstores have brilliant little cafes tucked into their corners where you can sit with your pile of books and a nibble before heading back home with your new treasures.
The author of the bestselling All Souls series reveals her bookshelf organization principles and sings the praises of the interlibrary loan.
With its unique mixture of slapstick and sincerity, Dreadful is an heartwarmingly earnest tale of an evil sorcerer who tries to become a better person ...
With its unique mixture of slapstick and sincerity, Dreadful is an heartwarmingly earnest tale of an evil sorcerer who tries to become a better person ...
Arthur is dead and the Round Table lies shattered in The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman, author of the bestselling Magicians trilogy. The story begins with Collum of the Isle of Mull, a character who does not appear in Arthurian legend, embroiled in a duel with an unnamed knight. The knight spits uncouth insults about Collum’s mother, and at the end of their brawl, Collum makes his first (extremely messy) kill of the book. This resolution to a duel outlines how most plot points are resolved in The Bright Sword: Someone inevitably dies, and no one is happy.
Once Collum gets to Camelot, none of the remaining knights are particularly happy either. After a few chapters about Collum, a new knight of the Round Table is introduced, and, as if remembering the reader may not know anything about this person, Grossman suspends the main story to relate how the knight arrived at Camelot. These consistently shifting perspectives, combined with an extremely loose approach to time and distance, creates a dreamlike vibe, suggestive of a story told around a campfire by a narrator who keeps getting distracted. Those with little patience will likely find The Bright Sword frustrating, but readers willing to savor the book over many nights will find each chapter a neatly arranged, miniature adventure of its own.
Traditionally minimal side characters in the story of Arthur—like Sir Bedivere, Sir Palomides and even Dagonet the Fool—receive intricate, deep backstories that erase the mythological buildup around each figure, viewing them instead in a far more human and often more modern light. In many older tales, Palomides is a Middle Eastern stereotype, used entirely as a foil to elevate Sir Tristan’s status as an honorable and just knight. But in Grossman’s story, Palomides is a prince and explorer who is wildly misunderstood by his knightly peers, with his own journey of self-discovery and growth.
At once full of desperate hope and grievous loss, The Bright Sword is a moody reflection on Arthur’s tale. This saga is not marked by optimism, but instead a dignified cynicism. Collum and his endearing band of Round Table Rejects (album out soon) simply live and persevere, knowing that if they do not try to bring peace to the now-fractured Britain, no one else will.
At once full of desperate hope and grievous loss, Lev Grossman’s The Bright Sword is a moody reflection on the tales of King Arthur and the Round Table.
As teens, best friends Jeremy Cox and Rafe Howell disappeared into a stretch of West Virginia wilderness known as Red Crow. They reappeared six months later, perfectly healthy and fit save for a series of scars on Rafe’s back. Fifteen years later, the two men are estranged. Rafe is an artistic recluse with no memory of their time away, and Jeremy is a preternaturally gifted missing persons investigator. Rafe knows that Jeremy remembers the truth of what happened, but Jeremy has long refused to reveal a single detail. When a young woman named Emilie Wendell tasks Jeremy with finding her birth sister—who coincidentally also disappeared in Red Crow—Jeremy knows that he’ll need Rafe’s help to find her.
Meg Shaffer’s The Lost Story is a gorgeously wrought tale of yearning, grief and hope. Taking heavy inspiration from C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia, Shaffer imagines what life would be like after a magical world changes you forever and then sends you home. Would you be Rafe, whose subconscious wants so desperately to return that he tries to drive to Red Crow in his sleep? Or Jeremy, who can remember every moment, but clearly has very strong reasons for not sharing them with Rafe? Or would you be the one left behind, who never knew what happened to your loved ones and could only hope that one day they’d return? The Lost Story gives us a window into all of these perspectives, depicting each with compassion without sacrificing a whit of drama. Layered atop it all, a delicious smattering of meta-narrative keeps the story feeling less like a tragedy and more like the warmhearted fairy tale that it is, reminding us that there is likely a happy ending (at least of sorts) waiting for us at the end of it all.
A spiritual epilogue to C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia, Meg Shaffer’s The Lost Story explores what happens after you return from a magical realm.
In a world full of Peter Pan reimaginings and remakes, P.H. Low’s These Deathless Shores stands apart. This evocative, thrilling flight follows Jordan, a 22-year-old woman who was once one of Peter Pan’s loyal Lost Boys. It’s been nine years since she and Baron, her childhood friend, were exiled from Peter’s Island. Both have tried to make a life in San Jukong, a sprawling city reminiscent of Southeast Asian metropolises, but Jordan’s been in withdrawal from Tinkerbell’s Dust ever since she left the Island and has become addicted to a drug called karsa in order to cope with her symptoms. Jordan decides to return and steal Tinkerbell in order to gain an unlimited supply of Dust, and drags Baron along on the perilous journey. But when sinister truths are revealed about Peter’s machinations, Jordan sets her sights on a new goal: revenge.
Low’s world building is lush and detail-laden, and they fully immerse readers into San Jukong and later Peter’s island, to the point that readers are sometimes left feeling as if they’re paddling to keep their heads above water. However, Baron and Jordan’s profound connection provides an emotional foundation. While Baron is content to forget Peter, Jordan knows that he will follow her to the ends of the earth to honor the bond they forged while masquerading as twins on the island. With each delicious and devastating twist, Low makes clear that the traditional archetypes of heroes and villains have been flipped on their head in this telling, especially when it comes to Jordan (who just so happens to wear a metallic prosthetic hand). As she and Baron fight the boy who never grew up, and navigate the traumatic memories that have come flooding back, can they rewrite the ending to this cursed bedtime story?
P.H. Low’s intriguing debut fantasy, These Deathless Shores, is a haunting modern spin on Peter Pan.
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In a world full of Peter Pan reimaginings and remakes, P.H. Low’s These Deathless Shores stands apart. This evocative, thrilling flight follows Jordan, a 22-year-old woman who was once one of Peter Pan’s loyal Lost Boys. It’s been nine years since she and Baron, her childhood friend, were exiled from Peter’s Island. Both have tried to make a life in San Jukong, a sprawling city reminiscent of Southeast Asian metropolises, but Jordan’s been in withdrawal from Tinkerbell’s Dust ever since she left the Island and has become addicted to a drug called karsa in order to cope with her symptoms. Jordan decides to return and steal Tinkerbell in order to gain an unlimited supply of Dust, and drags Baron along on the perilous journey. But when sinister truths are revealed about Peter’s machinations, Jordan sets her sights on a new goal: revenge.
Low’s world building is lush and detail-laden, and they fully immerse readers into San Jukong and later Peter’s island, to the point that readers are sometimes left feeling as if they’re paddling to keep their heads above water. However, Baron and Jordan’s profound connection provides an emotional foundation. While Baron is content to forget Peter, Jordan knows that he will follow her to the ends of the earth to honor the bond they forged while masquerading as twins on the island. With each delicious and devastating twist, Low makes clear that the traditional archetypes of heroes and villains have been flipped on their head in this telling, especially when it comes to Jordan (who just so happens to wear a metallic prosthetic hand). As she and Baron fight the boy who never grew up, and navigate the traumatic memories that have come flooding back, can they rewrite the ending to this cursed bedtime story?
P.H. Low’s intriguing debut fantasy, These Deathless Shores, is a haunting modern spin on Peter Pan.
Jared Pechacek’s The West Passage is a medieval(ish) fantasy novel awash in dualities. It’s richly detailed, but often lonely and stark. It’s whimsical, bordering on silly, before turning grotesque and haunting. It speeds up without warning, then slows down to closely examine some new oddity. The West Passage is consistently wondrous; the reader turns each page knowing they will encounter something wholly new.
Five towers rise from a massive palace, each one home to an ancient Lady. These giant beings, full of mysterious power, rule over the people who live there like beekeepers tending a hive. But not in Grey Tower, where the last Lady has long since died. All that remains are the women of Grey Tower, left to tend to a decaying fortress and observe their rituals even as their numbers dwindle. When the guardian of Grey Tower dies, two young apprentices’ journeys begin. Pell, the women’s apprentice, searches to find out why winter covers Grey Tower even in spring. Meanwhile, the guardian’s apprentice, Kew, must relay his mistress’ final, ominous message to Black Tower: The Beast, an eternal evil, stirs in the West Passage. If the Beast returns, the palace’s very existence will be in jeopardy. Can these two youths find the answers and save their world before the cataclysm?
The setting of The West Passage is as much a character as Pell and Kew. Following in the footsteps of Lewis Carroll, Pechacek has built a universe unique in modern fantasy. Solemnity and absurdity abound in equal measure: Bodies are given to the birds rather than being buried, and an eccentric schoolteacher tries to teach apes how to read and write. Strange things, lovely things and horrific things all blend together in a fable-like narrative of deceptive simplicity. It’s exciting to get lost in a world like this and be surprised and unsettled again and again. The West Passage deserves a chance to spellbind you: Dive headfirst into the rabbit hole.
Jared Pechacek’s The West Passage is consistently wondrous; in this experimental fantasy, the reader turns each page knowing they will encounter something wholly new.
As teens, best friends Jeremy Cox and Rafe Howell disappeared into a stretch of West Virginia wilderness known as Red Crow. They reappeared six months later, perfectly healthy and fit save for a series of scars on Rafe’s back. Fifteen years later, the two men are estranged. Rafe is an artistic recluse with no memory of their time away, and Jeremy is a preternaturally gifted missing persons investigator. Rafe knows that Jeremy remembers the truth of what happened, but Jeremy has long refused to reveal a single detail. When a young woman named Emilie Wendell tasks Jeremy with finding her birth sister—who coincidentally also disappeared in Red Crow—Jeremy knows that he’ll need Rafe’s help to find her.
Meg Shaffer’s The Lost Story is a gorgeously wrought tale of yearning, grief and hope. Taking heavy inspiration from C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia, Shaffer imagines what life would be like after a magical world changes you forever and then sends you home. Would you be Rafe, whose subconscious wants so desperately to return that he tries to drive to Red Crow in his sleep? Or Jeremy, who can remember every moment, but clearly has very strong reasons for not sharing them with Rafe? Or would you be the one left behind, who never knew what happened to your loved ones and could only hope that one day they’d return? The Lost Story gives us a window into all of these perspectives, depicting each with compassion without sacrificing a whit of drama. Layered atop it all, a delicious smattering of meta-narrative keeps the story feeling less like a tragedy and more like the warmhearted fairy tale that it is, reminding us that there is likely a happy ending (at least of sorts) waiting for us at the end of it all.
A spiritual epilogue to C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia, Meg Shaffer’s The Lost Story explores what happens after you return from a magical realm.
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In 2019, we’ve enjoyed a number of good comic tales—but they’re dark, a little wicked, and even when they’re a little fantastical, they’re deeply, utterly real. Here are five of our favorites.
