A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna (audio)

Posted on March 30, 2026 by pagesofjulia

Loving everything I’ve read by Sangu Mandanna, but **especially** The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, I was delighted to hear about this new one on audio. Thanks, Liz!

This is quite in the spirit of that other title, with themes of family, love, belonging, finding one’s own tribe, and owning one’s own strengths, weaknesses, and specialties. When we meet her, Sera Swan is a teenaged witch in training. More or less abandoned by her parents, she lives with her much beloved great aunt Jasmine at the Batty Hole Inn, which they run together. They have recently been joined by a witch in fox’s clothing (she is trapped in a fox’s body after a spell gone wrong) named Clemmie. When Jasmine dies in the garden, Clemmie gives Sera the spell to resurrect her, which Sera quickly does. She is probably the most powerful witch in all of Britain – despite being a girl, and still young, and most upsettingly to those in charge, a half-Icelandic, half-Indian, nonwhite person (the British Guild of Sorcery being as stodgy and, yes, racist as we might expect it to be). Jasmine is indeed brought back to life, along with (accidentally) her long-dead pet rooster, Roo-Roo, a mere rooster skeleton but avidly underfoot. But this great powerful spell has cost Sera virtually all of her magical power. This is devastating, because Sera loves her magic. Because the resurrection spell was not strictly legal, Sera has been exiled from the Guild to boot. (None of this is especially spoiler-y as it all takes place in the first few pages.)

Fast forward, and an adult Sera remains at Jasmine’s side, managing the Batty Hole Inn with much frustration, creative cursing, and precious little magic. She still mourns what she has lost, and thinks constantly about how to regain her power. But she is lucky to have Aunt Jasmine, for one – and Roo-Roo – and a motley crew of other residents: there is Nicholas, an awkward young man who thinks himself a knight, complete with shining armor and a very real sword; Matilda, a grumpy older woman who loves to garden (badly) and has become close to Jasmine; Sera’s cousin Theo, another young witch whose immediate family has abdicated; and still Clemmie, still a grumpy, meddling fox-witch. One of Sera’s spells from back before she lost her powers still protects the inn from those who wish harm, but reveals it especially to those in need of its particular kind of succor, which is how Sera has found herself surrounded by such loveable, messy eccentrics. And then a new addition to Batty Hole arrives. Luke has long been at odd angles to the Guild, but finds meaningful work in academic research if he keeps his head down; but his younger sister Posie is not so under-the-radar. At nine years old, she is a powerful witch and also autistic, which means she is not inclined to follow rules, including the all-important one about not letting mainstream society find out about magic. Luke is running out of options to keep his dear sister safe; they are quite on the run when they arrive at Batty Hole. The refugees only mean to stay a short while, but the two magical children, Theo and Posie, do well together, and Luke and Sera (onetime misfit magical children themselves) may have assistance to offer each other in turn. The newcomers fit neatly into the inn’s batty little family. Sera might even get her magic back – but at what cost?

Sera had always been good at fortitude. Fortitude was her friend. She had fortituded her way through undependable parents, megalomaniac mentors, scheming foxes, the death of a loved one, the resurrection of said loved one, the loss of her magic, and quite a large number of fiascos big and small since then. Unfortunately, she and fortitude seemed to have now parted ways, because Sera, glaring fearsomely at an empty glass teapot, was at her wits’ end.

So. There is a lovely built family of oddballs, finding ways to relate to each other on nontraditional terms. There is the trick of finding where we each fit in, and caring for children – and adults – who are different, but not less than. There are many kinds of love, including familial and romantic (and just a little sex), and at every stage of life. There is awe and magic, and there are bad guys and one battle in particular. There are absolutely laugh-out-loud lines, and Nicholas’s loveable but quite silly jousting. It’s extremely sweet, but I brought a sweet tooth to this cozy fantasy tale about community and gumption. Samara MacLaren’s narration was fun and expressive (and great points for so many accents) – perfect. I am 100% all in for Sangu Mandanna.

Rating: 8 scones.

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So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix by Bethany C. Morrow

Posted on March 27, 2026 by pagesofjulia

I like these remixes, and I remember Little Women with a warm fondness. Louisa May Alcott’s novel championed strong, outspoken women and questioned classism; and it offered a cozy picture of a certain type of society: in my memory, one that only included white people. Here, Bethany C. Morrow recasts the story in a different frame. Four sisters, bridging girlhood and adulthood, with their adored mother, navigate many changes in a world that is also fast-changing. Their beloved father is away at war or supporting postwar efforts. The novel opens in 1863, and the March family are among the residents of the newly established Roanoke Island Freedpeople Colony. They have their own house, with multiple rooms. Meg teaches the colony’s children to read and write, although she must do so in tents, because the white missionary teachers claim the buildings. Jo and a group of young men work building more houses for the constant influx of new residents. Bethlehem is a whiz of a seamstress, making new clothes for the colony’s people from what the former enslavers left behind. Amethyst wishes to study, to dance, to live all of life; but at 14, she is subject to her family’s wish for her to stay a child a little longer. She helps Beth where she can. Mammy takes transcription for the (white) officers who run the colony.

True to the original, Meg is a nurturer who yearns for her own family; her wish for a husband drives the earliest plot action. Jo is a great thinker and, within the household, speechmaker; it takes her family to encourage her to begin writing down her thoughts, which here center on the value of the freedpeople’s colony. She is driven to argue in favor of such projects, to fundraise, to seek the independence of her community which is so far too dependent and beholden on white folks who, though Northern and not enslavers, still hold the power and purse strings, and consider Black folks inferior. Beth is still sickly, kindhearted, and supportive, and Amy is still a firebrand in her own ways. There is still a Lorie – Jo’s Lorie – who is devoted to her but also challenges her with his different opinions about the best way forward for Black southerners.

These characters debate, for example, the advantages of the freedpeople’s colony versus moving north or beyond, including to Liberia. They question the nature of freedom, and what to do with the limited progress they’ve seen so far: to be no longer enslaved is certainly good, but doesn’t make them want to fall at the feet of white abolitionists in gratitude, because it is only right. And to be free from enslavement doesn’t mean they don’t feel a boot on their neck in many ways. Such debates within the structure of a novel don’t always work for me – they can feel forced or unnatural within dialog. But that’s not the case here. For whatever it’s worth, I find this device true to Alcott’s original, and in both versions, I think it feels true to the characters themselves. One thing I believe we love about the Marches is that they are actively engaging with their world and with one another, in both stories, discussing what they see around them and how they want to be in the world. I think it works, and I think it feels to-the-minute relevant in 2026.

I loved seeing these March sisters head in different directions than Alcott’s did. It’s hard not to tell you here where they go and what they find there – please go read this book.

Rating: 7 skates.

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An Arcane Inheritance by Kamilah Cole

Posted on March 23, 2026 by pagesofjulia

“…it was nice to have [him] remind her that there was more to her life than school and murders.”
Dark academia, smoldering romance, mystery, fantasy, and examinations of systemic concerns to do with race and class: An Arcane Inheritance is a compelling, plot-driven story to get lost in, mostly. There were a few snippets that could have used another round of edits, but I’m still glad I spent my time this way, and I was definitely hungry for a sequel that doesn’t seem to exist. At least not yet!

Ellory Morgan is a Jamaican immigrant to Queens, where she lives with her Aunt Carol, only rarely hearing from her parents who remain in their home country. An accomplished student, she was accepted to Ivy League schools, but they remained out of financial reach, so Ellory had been working two jobs, caring for Carol (who is in poor health), and wishing for more, when she received an unexpected and unsolicited letter from the ninth Ivy: Warren University. They want to give her a full ride. Flash forward to three weeks in. She’s drowning in her con law class and beefing with the handsome, arrogant, privileged Hudson Graves (whose family name is on the Graves Library where she studies), when a strange thing happens. She steps into another realm, or hallucinates, or – could it be magic? – sees impossible things. And it’s not even the first time. For Ellory, Warren’s campus is filled with half-memories, déjà vu, and an increasing sense of danger. She could swear she’s been here before.

Ellory is drawn to journalism, to research and the quest for truth, so it’s not a great leap for her to begin investigating Warren’s history, especially the more disturbing chapters, like Warren’s ties to the esoteric, to old magic, and the Lost Eight: students of color who disappeared without a trace, over the course of years. To find answers, she finds herself allying with Hudson Graves, who remains both magnetic and highly irritating. What they discover together will threaten lives.

I’ll stop here to acknowledge the small things that, however minor, did detract from my experience. There is a humidifier running in the rare books room of a college library. Rare books generally need dehumidifying. The ideal humidity is nonzero, so you could conceivably find yourself in a place where they need more humidity, but that would be an awfully dry place, and I suspect not Connecticut. The rare books room is also unstaffed, and we’re watching these undergrads just idly drag their hands along the spines, which is not good rare-books-room behavior. Look, I know these are nitpicky little silly details, but they took me out of the story. If the author doesn’t have library background, no sweat – that’s why the publishing house has editors.

Check this one out:

This hidden balcony was barely large enough for three men of Hudson’s size, but it was perfect for the two of them; she placed her hands on the railing with almost enough room between them to open an umbrella.

I kept coming back to this sentence. It’s hilarious to me. There are not three men in this scene, of any size. There is a young man and a young woman. It is also not raining, and no umbrella appears within several chapters of this action. Why on earth are there three hypothetical men of Hudson’s size, let alone a random umbrella (which is anyway what, a pocket umbrella? a golf umbrella? This is like saying “the size of a car” when cars come in Smart and Excursion) on this balcony? It has that whole “don’t think about a pink elephant” effect.

I took such hang-ups with good humor, I promise I did. I like Ellory, her story mattered, I felt stress when the author wanted me to – there are definitely some running-through-the-woods, body-horror, life-on-the-line scenes that worked well. There were some less polished moments, but this is a well conceived plot and mostly very well written. And oh! I almost forget to mention a lovely design element: the page edges are decorated with some fairly intricate art, which is really nicely executed and makes for a genuinely gorgeous package. Not deckled edges (my archnemesis)! Like I said, I’d buy a sequel. Looking forward to more from Cole.

Rating: 7 glasses of white wine.

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Wolfsong by TJ Klune (audio)

Posted on March 20, 2026 by pagesofjulia

I took great pleasure in this great big Klune novel, first in a series (squeal!). At 19 hours, and over 500 pages in print, this is a nice deep dive: make sure you have the time, and it will be well rewarded.

We meet Ox when he is 12 years old, and his father, a violent drunk, is leaving. The father is not seen again, but he looms throughout the story, quoted as telling Ox that he’s stupid, that he will get shit all his life, that men don’t cry. Ox does go through some shit, but also finds so much love and surrogate family. The father is proven wholly wrong in the other respects, repeatedly and throughout, but Ox will be the last to believe that he is not stupid, that he is special, strong, capable, loved, and that his tears are okay.

Ox does have a lovely mother, and over time, forms bonds with his father’s former boss, now his own: Gordo, who runs an auto shop. The other employees at Gordo’s treat Ox as their own, too. And then, on his sixteenth birthday, he meets a ten-year-old boy named Joe, and will never be the same. Joe and his family are charismatic, powerful, beautiful people; they take Ox as one of their own, although it takes a little while to figure out what-all that means.

What follows is the building of family ties that are both literal, in this fantasy world, and figuratively, rather a fantasy of what we regular people might dream possible: indelibly strong connections and complete commitments. But also, drama and violence and betrayals, death and loss and grief; and also such love and passion, and just one or two extremely hot and fairly detailed sex scenes, quite late in the book. There were lines of absolutely exquisite humor, even among some of the worst and most painful parts. I wanted to include some of those here, but they were either too spicy or too spoiler-y, so please just believe me when I say Klune can make me laugh and cry at the very same time. For this reader, at least, he just excels at making me feel so much, so deeply. I would follow these characters anywhere.

This story is set in Green Creek, Oregon, a small, working-class town where the gritty real-world sort of bad things happen, but magic is also possible. A young boy who was told that he was big and dumb and slow can grow up to find and do surprising things. A young boy who has been horribly traumatized can remake himself, surrounded by love. I think I’ll stop here, because I want this beautiful book’s many, deep, complex twists and surprises to find you – if you choose – as they found me, unawares. I’m really excited about the rest of this series.

Kirt Graves narrates this audiobook beautifully. I’m sad that I’m not listening to him right now.

Rating: 9 slices of cucumber.

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The Enchanted Greenhouse by Sarah Beth Durst (audio)

Posted on March 16, 2026 by pagesofjulia

That’s what magic was: words that brought thought to life. And Terlu was very, very good with words – or at least with words like this. She couldn’t guarantee that the right ones were going to come out of her mouth in a random conversation, but this… this she felt confident about.

I love this series. It is snuggly and comforting – that is, it begins in a very different place, cold and lonely and frightened; but it spends these long hours getting to a place of calm and warmth.

At the end of The Spellshop, in my audio edition at least, readers (listeners) were treated to a bonus beginning of this novel. In that first chapter, we learn a little bit about what happened to Caz’s creator. The sentient spider plant was spelled to life by a librarian named Terlu Perna. Terlu was not a sorcerer, and therefore her magic was illegal; but she had been hopeful that it might be overlooked, because Caz’s creation was harmless, resulting only in new life. Her magic was not overlooked. In chapter one, we see her convicted and sentenced to be turned into a wooden statue. It seems she is doomed to be a statue – a mostly aware statue, but unable to move or speak – forever. Indeed, in The Spellshop, Caz and Kiela assume that when the Great Library burned, Terlu burned with it.

But now we know she didn’t. She awoke, came all the way back to flesh and blood, in the snow in an unfamiliar forest. Alive, but still alone, which is Terlu’s least favorite thing. She had created Caz because she was lonely and friendless, and needed a friend so badly that she risked everything. Now here she is, grateful to be back in her body, and then on the verge of freezing to death, and still alone.

She finds her way into a greenhouse. She meets a man, a gardener, apparently the only gardener in what he calls the Greenhouse of Belde, an enormous, elaborate, all-containing place, with many, perhaps even countless rooms. There is a greenhouse just for roses, one just for tomatoes, and four for vegetables, one in each season of the year. There is a greenhouse of singing plants, and one filled with saltwater and ocean plants. Terlu has never heard of the island of Belde or its wondrous, mythic greenhouses. The terse, grumpy gardener, a very handsome man named Yarrow, tells her he is the only one left. The sorcerer who created the Greenhouse is dead. All of the other gardeners had been sent away. And the greenhouses are slowly dying, one by one.

Terlu is likewise alone in the world, and moved by this puzzle, especially because the fate of Yarrow and his beloved Greenhouse seems tied to her own: she has nowhere else to go. And so, slowly, they build something. With the eventual company of a sentient rose named Lotti, and then a whole squadron of talking plants, they determine to try to repair what is failing on Belde. For Terlu, this means working illegal magic again, risking her worst nightmare coming true a second time. For Yarrow, it means trusting, opening himself up again after being abandoned by everyone he ever cared about. The story grows from there.

It wasn’t lost on me that Terlu made herself a friend – Caz – out of loneliness, because she deeply needed fellowship. And then Caz was inherited (so to speak) in book one by Kiela, who insists she needs no one and would prefer to be alone – but I think we can see now that her solitude is enabled by the company of the wonderful Caz. Terlu nearly lost everything, but Kiela was perhaps saved. And there is still time in their world for the good deeds to keep on snowballing.

For what it’s worth, I love that Terlu is solidly an academic. She enjoys study. She speaks (and reads) many languages, and likes to puzzle and learn. Also, as we know, it’s central to the plot that she is very social, needs company and conversation. There’s a charming bit (which I can’t find, because audiobooks can’t be riffled through like print ones) in which she recalls telling her family she wanted to be a librarian, and then having to explain to them that no, not all librarians just shush people and hide in the stacks; there are public-facing, people-oriented librarians, too. I love that! (Kiela was the other kind, happy to hide.) Faced with the markedly unfamiliar challenges of Belde, Terlu wants to be of assistance, and luckily finds a way to help through study, reading, and linguistics. Hooray!

The Enchanted Greenhouse is about loneliness and company, about finding where one belongs, about overcoming fears (and paranoia, even), taking risks and trusting. It’s about fellowship and building community. It does end in romance, as did book one. And there are plant friends (and a charismatic winged cat named Emeral). Variously labeled romantasy and ‘cottagecore’, this is a decidedly cozy novel, filled with good food and other comforts (but especially lots of good food). It moves at a decidedly measured pace – some readers will find it slow, but I’d offer the more positive descriptor, that it proceeds in leisurely or even cautious fashion, and rewards the reader’s settling in. Trusting, even. Once again, Caitlin Davies’ narration feels perfect. I’m anxious for this trilogy’s third installment, coming later this year, and will be looking into Durst’s other work. I’m delighted I found this one.

Rating: 8 honey cakes, obviously.

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The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow by Katherine Woodfine

Posted on March 13, 2026 by pagesofjulia

I picked this paperback up in a coffee shop where it had been abandoned with other, clearly used magazines and newspapers and such. It just looked fun: the cover, the back blurb. I read a few chapters that night and otherwise finished it in a single sitting. Fun fact: Amazon rates this book as being for ages 11-14, or grades 1-3. (Facepalm.) At any rate, it would be friendly for younger readers – I’d go with the age range rather than the grades listed there – but, obviously, was plenty enjoyable for this adult.

In the first years of the 1900s, a sumptuous new department store is set to open, one like London has never seen. Our protagonist is Sophie Taylor. She lost her mother young, and now, at age fourteen, she has just lost her father, a mostly-absent but loving military man. Raised in comfortable wealth, she’s now orphaned and on her own. Plucky Sophie feels lucky to have landed a job at Sinclair’s, where she’ll work in millinery and earn just enough for a spartan room in a working girls’ boarding house. But the night before the store is set to open, a priceless object is stolen: a jewel-encrusted clockwork sparrow that purportedly plays a unique song each time it’s wound. A young man is attacked in the commission of the burglary. And, in an unlikely twist, the cultured Sophie is implicated! Luckily, she has already made some new friends: junior porter Billy, who tends to get lost in his books; indomitable Lil, a chorus girl and ‘dress mannequin’; and perhaps even a less savory character with secrets of his own. Together, the young people set out to solve a mystery – or several of them – and clear Sophie’s good name. But the case is increasingly complicated, as major organized crime, police corruption, and shopgirl dramas intertwine. And the stakes get higher, as livelihoods and even lives are revealed to be at stake. But Sophie, Lil, Billy and Joe are not pushovers. They rise to the occasion. A delightful sequel is already headed my way. This is a series of four books so far!

The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow does indeed involve the grand, the daring, the dastardly, and the bold, as the back cover claims. I found it a delicious tale of adventure, friendship, and self-determination, not to mention mystery, danger, and code-breaking. I can’t wait to follow up with our two strong female leads. Best book picked up off a coffee shop table in years!

Rating: 8 iced buns.

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Bookshops and Bonedust by Travis Baldree (audio)

Posted on March 9, 2026 by pagesofjulia

I am completely taken with this very sweet series. Here, we get a big flashback from Legends and Lattes, to Viv’s youth. We meet her when she was just a young mercenary orc, on one of her earliest missions: full of cocky bravado and the joy of battle, she made the sort of error that cocky young warriors do, and found herself badly wounded. When she awakens from the fever of infection and pain, she finds that her crew has left her to recuperate in the small seaside village of Murk. Her boss has paid for her ongoing medical care and for the start of her lodging costs, and she is well funded to take her time recovering. But Viv is deeply frustrated to have been left behind – even though, when she tries to walk on her bad leg, she has to admit she could never have kept up with the pace of battle.

So. Viv is set back, cooling her heels, physically limited, furious, bored. She begins stumping painfully around town, looking into what there might be to do (not much), and committed to keeping up her training, as her injuries allow. It’s terrible! But she slowly discovers: a bookshop (terribly dusty and smelly, but staffed by a charmingly foul-mouthed ratkin named Fern who becomes a friend); books (reluctantly, then fiercely, she learns to love reading); a wonderful bakery (with a proprietor who finds Viv most appealing); and an indomitable young gnome who aspires to be a mercenary like Viv. She begins to find a rhythm, a new way of living. She helps Fern around the bookshop – together, they clean and reorganize, bring in a local author for a reading, and start a book club. Viv even, slowly, befriends Fern’s pet, a gryphet named Pot Roast. She enjoys a bit of a romance with the gifted dwarf baker, Maylee. And she develops a camaraderie with the gnome, Gallina, whom we already know from the later timeline. Viv is aware that these ties will be short-lived; she is anxious to get back to work with her mercenary crew when they come back through for her (fingers crossed). This gives the young love, in particular, a bittersweet flavor. Then, just to highlight how much she’s learned to care about her new friends in Murk, a threat arises. In her warrior work, Viv had been on the hunt for a necromancer called Varine the Pale. In her convalescence, it seems that Varine’s forces have come to her. It may take all she has, in both limping physical prowess and cleverness, to keep safe the people she’s met in her short stay on the coast.

This is just the sweetest tale: young love, earnest friendships, and the hard, dusty work of running a bookshop. (I feel a bit misled by Legends and Lattes: Viv did have some retail experience.) There are once more delicious pastries, and a quirky, sometimes-snuggly pet. The story ends with Viv’s departure, back on the road and back to slinging steel; but an epilogue ties these youthful events directly to Viv’s later life with Tandry at the coffee shop, and neatly sets us up for the next installment, Brigands and Breadknives, for which I am most anxious. Stay tuned! I’m entirely sold on this cozy fantasy series. Onward.

Rating: 8 bottles of bonedust.

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Mrs. Shim Is a Killer by Kang Jiyoung, trans. by Paige Morris

Posted on March 6, 2026 by pagesofjulia

In this bloody but cheerful novel, a middle-aged widow and mother of two becomes a contract killer to support her family, reinventing herself along the way.

Kang Jiyoung’s Mrs. Shim Is a Killer is a kaleidoscopic novel of murder-for-hire, crisscrossing loyalties, self-determination, and dark humor. In Paige Morris’s translation from the Korean, Kang’s matter-of-fact prose reveals a sly, absurdist wit. This playfully murderous thriller is not soon forgotten.

In the first chapter, readers meet Mrs. Shim. A 51-year-old widow, she supports a family of three; her son is of university age, her daughter just younger. Since the death of her husband five years ago, she has struggled to provide for her family by working in a butcher’s shop, relying on her knife skills to eke out a living while dutifully preparing kimchi, soybean soup, and other staples at home. When she loses her job, she is desperate for other work–not easy for an ajumma, or middle-aged woman, to find. At the Smile Private Detective Agency, however, she meets a boss impressed by her use of a knife. “I’d like you to become a killer,” the man says matter-of-factly, and Mrs. Shim finds she is in no position to turn down the gold bar he offers. Reluctant at first but driven by her need to provide for her children, she becomes Smile’s best killer yet, causing surprised rumors to circulate about the knife-wielding ajumma.

Mrs. Shim Is a Killer shifts perspective to follow one character and then another, from a long list of players in Mrs. Shim’s story. Aside from the title character, chapter titles refer to them by epithet: The Boss, The Shaman, The Confidant, The Daughter. Intrigue unfolds in this series of puzzle pieces, which provides varying angles on events where killers and amateurs off killers, bosses, and more. Because not all of these character spotlights take place in the same timeline, old secrets also come to light, and present-day rivals may reveal more nuanced relationships in the past. In final standoff scenes, characters are set against one another in unexpected arrangements and, through it all, readers root for Mrs. Shim, a reluctant but determined assassin.

Kang (The Shop for Killers) plays off expectations about mothers, lovers, and cultural norms to her reader’s constant surprise. With a complexly twisting plot, disarming characters, and a deceptive sense of humor, Mrs. Shim Is a Killer breaks genre boundaries in a surprisingly hopeful package. Bloody but cheerful, this unusual tale is entertaining and strangely cozy.

This review originally ran in the February 26, 2026 issue of Shelf Awareness for the Book Trade. To subscribe, click here.

Rating: 7 fishcakes.

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“Pages to Fill” by Travis Baldree (audio)

Posted on March 2, 2026 by pagesofjulia

“Pages to Fill” followed Legends and Lattes, packaged in with the same audiobook, read by the author*, and offering a tidbit of prequel background. At just about an hour long, it’s a good short view into Viv’s world of magical beings, and her own character and yearnings. It informs the novel I just finished, and keeps me interested in more. (I’m starting Bookshops and Bonedust next.)

I’ll keep this short, especially for such a short work. I enjoyed learning about Viv: a bruiser, but not invulnerable, and already showing signs of the special interest we see in Legends and Lattes, as well as the disillusionment with her then-current livelihood. She’s got a soft spot, which is beginning to be a point of conflict with her more hard-nosed colleague Gallina, despite their close relationship. I’m also left feeling curious about what happened to this short story’s antagonist. I’m excited to get into the rest of the series!

*Travis Baldree’s narration of his own work is something I failed to address in that earlier review. I liked it very well, not least because I love knowing how the author thinks a certain character will sound, or how a certain line will be delivered. If anything, this feels even more important in fantasy, where some names or other words may be the author’s inventions, or, we may have less context for what orcs and gnomes sound like than we do with fully human characters. I love hearing things the way the author imagines them, assuming the author has some basic performing chops – as this one certainly does. Baldree has other narration credits beyond (and predating, I think?) his own work. Definitely keeping this series in the mix, and stoked for it.

Rating: 7 bottles.

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Secrets of the First School by T. L. Huchu

Posted on February 27, 2026 by pagesofjulia

The fifth and final book in Huchu’s Edinburgh Nights series, Secrets of the First School does indeed pull things together and wrap them up neatly (though not overly so). Since The Legacy of Arniston House, Ropa has been through a lot and learned a lot. She continues to evince a teenager’s quick-changing moods and loyalties, but if this is occasionally jarring or even a little irritating, that’s not unlike “real” teenagers, is it. And she’s going through it: the loyalties unto her have taken some jarring turns, too. Avoiding spoilers, I will say we learn some shocking truths about Ropa’s own past, which challenge her relationship with everything and everyone around her.

Ropa dwells in a dystopian and at least mildly post-apocalyptic Scotland heavily influenced by her family’s Zimbabwean roots, in which magic is real and fairly complex. Ropa has special powers to communicate with the dead, who inhabit several afterworlds with varying levels of porosity with her own living one, and she has an unusual ability to travel in between. I admit I never fully grasped the details of the rules of this fictional sphere; I let it all float by me when things got a little confusing, which is often how I handle fantasy and sci fi – a personal failing? or maybe a way many of us read these genres? Not sure. At any rate, I think this is something the real world sometimes asks of us, too, and it’s always felt okay to me. I’m not sure I ‘get’ everything Ropa encounters, but who among us does? Which is all to say: this is a highly detailed act of worldbuilding. Ropa and her crew feel quirky and odd at times – like real people do. I cared deeply about what happened to her. I’ll miss her.

Rating: 7 bodies.

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