Oh, how I loved this wickedly smart, gothic reimagining of Cinderella! In which Ella *IS* the house (or, rather, the house’s ghost), her stepmother is her murderer, and her stepsister is her torturer, and the prince is — well, I won’t spoil it.

This is an incredibly researched, empathetically rendered, deeply poignant book. I learned so much, and I am about to shove this book into everyone’s hands. (I also listened to the vast majority of it on audio, and I think it worked great.)

I almost — almost — let this one slip through the cracks of my TBR. Reader, that would have been a grave mistake. What an incredible firecracker of a standalone fantasy novel!!

Well, I did not expect this novel — about a (female) blob monster who falls in love with a (human) woman and decides she wants to lay her eggs in her body, after which her offspring would devour her from the inside out — to be one of my favorite reads of the year. And yet! What fun this was!

What a moving exploration of youth, love, desire, and recovery from trauma. I’m intrigued to see what the sequel holds for these characters!

I think anyone who loves language or is a creator (or is simply very online) will love this book, but if you’re both of those things, it’s an absolute MUST read.

It took me way too long to read The Tainted Cup — its Hugo nomination tipped the scales — because y’all, this was SO much fun and just so well done.

A wholly original and unputdownable sweeping, epic, magical story for the ages, this is my favorite book I’ve read so far this year and could easily maintain that #1 spot all the way through.

Searches is a timely, personal, and incredibly smart look at our techological present and immediate past, probing what AI is doing and will do to our lives with a healthy dose of skepticism while holding the giants like Meta, Amazon, etc to task.