Everything's coming up Emily...Wilde, that is!

 Emily Wilde series by Heather Fawcett 

Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries

See also (soon):

Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands

Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales

COMING SOON: Emily Wilde's History of Dark Faerie (shivers!) 

*Be aware that these are fairy tales in the OLD sense, where the Fae are beautiful beyond words but also deadly: treacherous, amoral, and careless of mortal frailties where they are not outright cruel beyond human comprehension. Do not read these to your pre-teen children - or to any adults prone to nightmares.

It's impossible to praise just one of the Emily Wilde books and do it justice. Even though they can be read alone, the 3 books available so far have beautifully connected stories that flow together like one longer story that we readers are privileged to join for the journey in each part. When I accidentally dipped into the 3rd book last fall when it showed up on the New Release shelf of my local library, I instantly had to go back and start at the 1st book to learn how Emily got to that VERY intriguing opening sequence. 

The writing, the characters, the setup were all catnip to one who has loved Genevieve Cogman's INVISIBLE LIBRARY series or The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door by H.G. Parry. The character Grace in Natasha Pulley's The Watchmaker of Filigree Street. Lydia, wife of James Asher in the vampire novels by Barbara Hambly, who is also a scholar: a brilliant medical researcher & sometimes paranormal investigator. Or any other book about academic women of any era who are investigating arcane mysteries while fending off putdowns by their patriarchal department heads, fellow professors, and disapproving family members (male, mostly). They are  all women in men's worlds, investigating and at risk from dangers both mortal and.. extra-mortal, which includes a number of options beyond simply paranormal.

I've since devoured all three Emily books currently available and can unhesitatingly recommend them to anyone who loves strong women, academia, feminism, and the Fae. In fact, I've been known to read snippets out loud to family and friends, because the gentle humour and snarky sidelights on dating life have near-universal appeal. 

But enough about me. Back to Emily.

In Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faerie, we quickly learn that Emily's a professor whose area of study is Dryadology, the study of all things related to the Fae. From her journal, which forms the backbone of the narration, it's clear that she's starting field work in a tiny village on an island called Ljosland that might - or might not - correspond to the Norwegian region of the same name known to our modern world. 

In her world, roughly akin to early Edwardian British Isles, dryadology is a recognized field of academic endeavour and women can earn degrees in it (they couldn't receive degrees in England until the 1920s in our world).  To make her mark and cement her place in the department, Emily's attempting to finish off her Encyclopedia of Faerie with a series of additional entries on the Folk: the Hidden of this region (from the High Fae, or Tall Ones, to the wee brownies, sprites, fox-faeries and others of their lesser stature). She's been working on her Encyclopedia for nine years already, and when it's finally finished and accepted for publication, it will be the most comprehensive of its kind in her world. A worthy endeavour indeed, and one that might finally shift her title from adjunct professor to tenured one.

Before she can begin, though, this gently-bred and college-residing scholar must learn to fend for herself (and her immense black hound) in the extremely rustic conditions of her rented cottage: chop her own firewood, haul her water from the stream out back, shovel snow, and lug provisions up the steep track from the nearest village. She must make pleasant conversation with her landlord and the villagers, a skill she has never yet managed to master. As she says herself, "I may be a poor judge of human feeling, but I have had plenty of experience with putting my feet wrong..." Her interactions with the amused, occasionally bemused, and sometimes hostile locals are a constant source of simmering amusement to readers even as they frustrate Emily's efforts to get her studies under way.. 

But all that is nothing to the frustration she feels when her department's Golden Boy, Professor Bambleby, turns up with two graduate students in tow, blithely declaring he is there to oversee her efforts. And he arrives just before the winter snows set in, making it impossible for Emily to send him packing back to England.

 Worst of all, her dog likes him!

The journal entries in Emily's inimitable, irascible voice are a delight to read, and the scholarly footnotes provide much background information via references to species of fae and other scholarly works related to her current pursuits. She's adept at parsing folklore to tease out useful clues for dealing with the courtesies expected for meeting the local wee ones and obtaining their cooperation. 

But then those adorable wee ones meet Bambleby, and their extreme reactions to him set Emily's senses on high alert. Just who - or what - will be sharing her cottage over the dark, cold months?

The mystery and adventure of the following winter is a page-turner, with other-worldly excursions and twisty deals with fae both Tall and wee, through breathtaking scenery and spellbinding terror. And always a new problem to solve that needs every nuance Emily can glean from her mind's encyclopedic knowledge of fairy tales the world over. 

I left Emily's world this first time with relief, joy, wonder, and eagerness for more.

#Netgalley #EmilyWilde #EncyclopediaOfFairies #fantasy #fiction #academia #scholarly #Cambridge #professor #gradstudents #dryadology #Scandinavian #fairytales #brownies #sprites #HighFae #DarkFae #DarkFantasy #winter #InvisibleLibrary #GenevieveCogman #TheScholarAndTheLastFaerieDoor #HGParry #AsherVampireSeries #LydiaAsher #BarbaraHambly

 

 

 

 

The Mystic and the Missing Girl

 

The Mystic and the Missing Girl 

 

 by Vikki VanSickle

Pub Date: Sep 8 2026

 

Who doesn’t love a tarot card mystery? Or a shop filled with shiny crystals and little kits for manifesting luck, love, abundance,. Or an old, cold case of a missing teen girl from when our protagonist was in high school

Selling those kept the shop, and the eccentric Hannah Mystic, small town TV psychic, in groceries for most of her adult life. But none of those kits or crystals worked for the teenage Ginny, who disappeared 20 years ago this year. All that’s left of the very cold case are a few cryptic clues in Hannah's vision journals that didn’t leave the police anywhere useful.

Now Hannah‘s niece Drew is running the store, and her old high school, chemistry partner, now a hotshot - and simply hot - big city reporter, is back in her store and probing her hidden sore spots. A confirmed skeptic about psychic phenomena, he's digging up the old case for an anniversary revisit and he wants Hannah‘s old journals to see if he can make sense of the deceased psychic’s visions.

But Drew wants no part of raking up the past notoriety of her family and the shop. That someone vandalized her front window makes her think there’s more to this anniversary than meets the eye. What will the cards say? If Drew can bring herself to read them, that is. She has been hiding her psychic gifts ever since high school, rather than take on the notoriety or mockery or duration directed at her aunt.

Inserted throughout is tarot lore: mention of famous card sets and their designers, discussions of what each tarot could mean, mentions of how some religions view card reading and other spirituality tools as the devil’s work. I liked how the first reading Drew does is kind of a map to her opening dilemma and the journey ahead. I was tempted to bookmark that first reading so I could come back to check on progress. The tarot also opens moments of more serious acknowledgements - of loss and grief, of what we owe to those who have passed on.

Present are the usual cosy mystery collection of cutesy businesses and eccentric small town characters, some with secrets related to the old disappearance and some whose unrelated secrets are hindering the renewed investigation. There’s an old crush and sometimes-hookup whose slimy behaviour is brilliantly excoriated by both Drew and her friend Gigi. You will love to hate him too, even while he works his possibly fatal attraction on you. There is at least one chat message string in the missing girl's history that will chill any woman to the bone. In other words, a good diversity of flavourings around the main meat of the mystery.

It's been described as 'Veronica Mars meets Schitt's Creek', and while our protagonist is older than Veronica and the townsfolk not quite as zany as Moira Rose and her clueless cohort, there's definite resonance. Plus, for all the mystical trappings, this is a competently investigated mystery with compelling twists, and a strong resolution that resonates with our protagonist’s personal life as well.

#Netgalley #TheMysticAndTheMissingGirl #NewRelease #StMartinsMinotaur #Tarot #CardReadings #disappearance #unsolved #mystery #smalltown #crimefiction #cosycrime #HometownGirl #HighSchoolHottie #psychometry #prediction #visions #police #corruption #friendship #frenemy

---

The Henchperson's Guide to Unionizing 

by Marshall J. Moore 

My second Frankenstein retelling novel for this season is quite different from the previous one. Although they're both told by/about sidekicks rather than the doctor or his creation, this one is from the point of view of the misshapen laboratory assistant, Igor. And that is only one of the quixotic differences from the original and its many successors.

The set up is swift, with a pitchforks-and-torches mob advancing on the derelict castle while the doctor is in the final stages of his latest attempt to reanimate a cobbled-together corpse. Thanks to Igor’s forethought and recognition of inevitability involving the trajectory local villagers' suspicions, the pair escapes the castle with most of their laboratory equipment and supplies, abandoning their shocked but immobile experiment. They set up a new workshop in a distant region where the doctor has some claim on a long-deserted manor house with a suitable tower, not too close to a town but not too distant from a cemetery where fresh – relatively fresh – parts can be had for their next experiment.

The writing is swift and sure. Igor is a convincing and sympathetic character. The doctor is as much of a jerk as you might expect, but Igor tries to make the best of things. His commitment to his unremunerated job is one of his endearing qualities. He might be almost the perfect employee, willing to turn his hand to any number of grizzly tasks and swallow any number of degrading insults from his master. Kind of like Wormtongue is treated by Saruman, but with a much worse clothing allowance.

But sooner or later, every worm must turn. And it appears Igor is about to turn chief cook and bottle washer for a collection of unwanted housemates in the new abode. One consolation is that there are now other minions at hand, also being insulted by, respectively, their master or mistress. For the first time in as long as he can remember, Igor isn’t alone with his servitude. And in companionship comes common purpose, even, eventually, solidarity. 

The writing is competent, the voice of Igor flawless. The story unfolds at a clipping, but totally cohesive pace, with excellent characterization and goals that are easy to identify with, no mean feet considering they involve not only Igor and the doctor but a cat that is not a cat and a vampire with yearnings for a life beyond drinking blood. And … Something Else. 

You might think that this sets up a horrifying paranormal tale, but it’s actually a fascinating character study that explores consent and servitude, bullying and respect, ethical dilemmas and the choice to do good in a world where so many around you are bad.

I was sorry when this one came to a close. Even though the wrap-up itself was satisfying, I just liked these characters and wanted to spend more time with them. It's a story with a lot of heart, even disregarding those examples in the spare parts crypt.

 

 #TheHenchpersonsGuidetoUnionizing #NetGalley #Horror #SFF #humorous #cat #Igor #Frankenstein #sidekicks #vampires #demons #witches #werewolf #paranormal #cemetery #castle #lightning #HeartsInJars #brains 

Frankenstein Meets Wuthering Heights

 

Her Creation

by Jeneane O'Riley 

 This book has several content warnings at the front, and every one of them is earned. If any of them concern you, this is not the book for you. 

'Her Creation' is a feminine (not necessarily feminist) retelling of the Frankenstein story, in which young Victoria grows up with her eccentric doctor father in a run-down castle in a forest where he alternates between perfecting his surgical techniques on cadavers and stitching up the wealthy landowners' wastrel sons after their drunken reckless exploits. Victoria is dreaming of learning reincarnation to restore her much-missed mother, and assumes her father is working toward the same end. As with many modern retellings, there are female friendships to counter the traditional solitary-genius trope, nods to same-sex relationships that wouldn't be discussed openly in that era, and other nods to modern sensibilities that were not, for the most part, particularly intrusive or distracting (ymmv). 

The framing is of a female scholar signing on with a shipboard expedition to map the great northern wastes, when they find a very large, much-scarred man seemingly half-frozen on the ice. The scholar keeps a journal about her patronizing and patriarchal treatment by the crew that soon elides, after meeting the monster and his mystery-woman maker, into a recounting of how the unlikely pair ended up there. There are some philosophical musings from the aging Doctor Frankenstein about the nature of life, politics, morality, and the responsibilities of healers. Much of the language and atmosphere is redolent of the original text, though filtered through a feminine narrator..

The erotic fascination with the monster is writ larger upon the page than in any previous retelling I've encountered. The monster's obsession with her is also deeply explored. Think Wuthering Heights meets, well, Frankenstein. If you're reading for the slow-burn, dark, sexual energy, you won't be disappointed.

If you're not thus enamoured, the scholar seen so briefly at start and end may feel like the more interesting character. While the fiction of her recording Victoria's story continues in dated and located log book entries, the story and voice is all Victoria's (or, occasionally, the monster's) to carry. It starts too early in Victoria's young life and goes too long on too little forward motion beyond the passage of time, with too much interior musing between lines of dialogue or brief action sequences. Victoria's actions and reactions don't always seem credible. Too many pages in the first half are taken up with circular anguished emoting that leads nowhere, while the narrative largely glosses over her reaction/response to a very realistic and repeatedly traumatizing situation that is certain to be quite triggering for unwary readers. The writing is occasionally clumsy and self-contradicting, throwing us out of the fictive historical-seeming world with words like 'okay' and phrases about 'outing' someone dropped into the midst of scenes that should be the most immersive of all. It needed a sensitive copy-edit to keep the author's enthusiastic prose from charging past peak emotional and sensual impacts in a gush of weakening words and phrases.

And yet... there are moments, short speeches, a touch here or a gaze there, filled with love and depth and searing clarity that make it worth reading to the end. 

#ThanksNetGalley #HerCreation #FrankensteinRetold #DarkFantasy #erotic #sensual #scary 

Egyptology to DIE for!

 

The Pharoah's Curse Murders

By Melodie Campbell
 

April 2025
Cormorant Books 

What begins as a murder game to while away the hours aboard ship soon becomes all too real!

From the cover alone - sexy art deco with a curious scarab, you know you’re facing Egypt in the 1920s. That era in real life, as in this book, was aflame with passion for all things Egyptian. The tomb of Tutenkhamun was discovered in 1922, followed by a series of deaths among archeologists, resulting in a worldwide obsession with mummies and curses. 

Like the previous adventures of our heroine, Lady Revelstoke, and her indomitable maid, Elf, this one starts on a cruise ship. This time they are heading not across the turbulent wintry Atlantic, instead traveling sedately down the European coastline and along the Mediterranean to Egypt, the gateway to the Orient, the Nile, and all the mysteries of this ancient empire now being reclaimed from the smothering sands by eager archeologists from several nations. You can start with this one and not be irretrievably lost (although I'm sure you'll want to go back and read prior 'Merry Widow Murders' afterward - one is reviewed here).

The writing is elegant and multi-sensory, yet keeps the scene moving, and the characters blossom into real people, complete with just enough of their personal histories to ground readers in their personality and motivations. The necessary historical world building slides in so neatly it is almost invisible. Even the archeological politics of Egyptian excavations gets revealed to the reader in just enough detail, through ideally placed dialogue, that we almost don’t notice it is setting up a potential conflict between characters. Is it conflict enough to murder someone over? We'll find out...

Amelia Peabody fans will surely approve the Egyptology, and fashionistas of any age will adore the nods to flapper style and designers of the era. 

"a light apricot coloured sheath that covered her trim body in the most flattering way. Adorning her bobbed hair was a beaded headband with matching apricot feather at front."

"a magenta beaded gown by Lanvin— not my newest, but a favourite because of the hue. My brunette colouring works well with jewel tones. I set a modest diadem on my head and snatched up the matching wrap and evening bag left on the bed."

Delicious! Imagine owning a modest demi-tiara, that presumably keeps company in the traveling jewel case with less modest ones for more ostentatious events.

This author does a great job of setting us in the manners and social expectations of widowed aristocratic ladies, without beating us over the head with stodgy protocol. It is part of their gift to put us firmly in that era with all its prejudices and pretensions, sexism, and racism, and yet make all the characters accessible to the modern reader without resorting to obviously modern slang or behavior. 

 

Underpinning all the fashion, froth, and Egyptology, other, less pleasant realities get a mention:  

• that Egyptians were stripped of authority for self-governance by European colonizers, unable to stop the wholesale export of their cultural history to museums and private collections around the world, and 
• that women were shut out of most professions in the 1920s, and the few who got a chance to do anything approaching scholarship, in this case archeology, were regarded with suspicion as much by other women as by the men who believed in their own superiority at everything. 

There is even a reference to the vital role of Egyptologist Margaret Murray, training women in archaeological techniques at University College, London, which is explored in much greater length in this other review… 

The titular murders, like all those from the pen of this author, are complex, well plotted, embedded in the characters' personalities and relationships, and a pleasure to try to puzzle out as the story unfolds in all its fascinating, curious, fashionable historical wonder.

 #NewRelease #CormorantBooks #MelodieCampbell #MerryWidowMurders #MurderAtSea #CruiseShipMurder #Egyptology #AmeliaPeabody #Scarab #Pyramids #Death #jewels #AmateurDetective #AmateurSleuth #1920s #flappers #fashion #mummies #Canadian #BuyCanadian #CanadianAuthors

Noncorporeal IV - a haunting anthology full of twists

Noncorporeal IV: Phantom Dusk 

Creation as an act of vengeance… creation as a determination to reclaim the life that was lost or stolen...

Horrifying twists on ancient tales and urban legends fill this anthology of noncorporeal bodies that haunt the twilight hour. 

The settings span a broad expanse of time and space, from old American graveyards to a crevasse on a long-forgotten moon. These are tales of ghosts and memories, and even machine intelligences, with protagonists both corporeal and non-.  They range from simple small-town hauntings to complex multi-generational monster-hunts - or monster-hiding - from the distant past to the impenetrable future, each penned by one of USA‘s celebrated short story writers.

As often the case with collections, some of the stories are spellbinding, and others are a little less so. Some are homey and others are pure horror. But tastes vary and a story that I love might be one that a different reader shrugs and skims past. Let it suffice to say that there is excellent variety around the central theme. Something to satisfy almost every taste.

This 4th-in-series kickstarter anthology was crowdfunded in 2026 by Kevin A. Davis and produced by Inkd Publishing.

Noncorporeal IV: Phantom Dusk seeks to satisfy the reader who loves the spooky tales that will keep you reading late into the night.

Find Inkd Publishing on Facebook  and Instagram too for many crime and horror anthologies to browse and for submission opportunities.  

I’d like to thank Beverle Graves Myers, whose writing I have admired since the very first Tito Amato mystery, for hooking me up with the publisher and this review copy.

#NewRelease #anthology #horror #ghosts #phantoms #dusk #danger #monsters #clowns #haunting #halloween #reunion #teenagers #revenge #justice #UnfinishedBusiness #Inkd

Yesteryear: a maddening, absorbing read for women

Yesteryear

by Caro Claire Burke

Pub Date: Apr 07 2026

 

UPDATE:   ANNE HATHAWAY has the film rights! 

This novel is an exploration of the endless conflict between internalized patriarchal womanhood and feminist personhood: snarky, scary, and far too relatable for far too long. For who among us has not swallowed rage rather than feed yet another spousal argument that's going nowhere? Who hasn’t told herself lies about loving her children when she is so exhausted she hates the very thought of them? What woman has not donned her makeup like it’s armour, thick enough to keep her alive if not to protect her completely from the day that’s coming at her?

The writing is crisp, the characterization subtle and efficient. The story of one determined decision after another keeps up the pace. But be warned: those final chapters are a terrible and terrifying mind-bender for any woman. 

Depending on where you’re starting from in your own life, the first part of this book will turn you green with envy or make you so nauseous you could lose your lunch. It’s a look behind the excruciatingly curated life of a tradwife influencer, narrated by a woman so sanctimoniously godly you want to cheer each time a bit of human anger slips through. 

Soon, though, the cracks start to appear behind the façade of the perfect man, perfect marriage, perfect family, perfectly photo-ready home with all mod-cons hidden behind time-warp doors. I won’t spell them out for you; discovering them as they peep through is the necessary spice to keep you spooning up the bland Eden our narrator is very consciously selling (Spanish-made linen-finish stock pot $244 – not a direct quote). 

But when Natalie wakes up actually in those Good Old Days she’s been cheerfully - or desperately - re-creating for the camera, she’s far less equipped to cope than she should be. Because, it turns out, making soap in your kitchen aided by your adorable daughters is a whole different ball game when there’s no producer to get things set up, no nannies to tend the children, when your body’s wrecked by repeat pregnancies with no health care, and your husband is not only just as incompetent but a whole lot less tolerant of wifely suggestions. 

From there we cycle by turns through this disastrous new present and the pre-influencer years that turned Natalie into a woman ready to sell her entire personality for a few more clicks on her Instagram reels. A scholarship gets her into one of the US’s premier colleges, and that’s where we see Natalie as an intelligent, envious outsider rather than the center of her impeccably stylized world. The first time we see the life she constructed her own bridge away from. And then we watch as she deliberately paves a path forward that attempts to live up to the impossible standards of her patriarchal religious family and in-laws, not to mention her online followers.

Her wit and snark gets full play in the college scenes, (An artificially intelligent Eden: a warm, incubated landscape designed to keep the worst kids in America safe and warm and well-fed until they matured past the urge to peck each other’s eyes out.”) standing in sharp contrast to her ‘Good Old Days’ chapters where every misstep compounds the last disaster and the consequences of raising her voice to a man are far more painful than the mocking laughter of her college roommates was. 

Whatever you thought of her before, you can’t help pitying College Natalie almost as much as her Good Old Days disintegrating psyche. She’s so sure her narrow religious upbringing is all she’ll ever need, and she’s walking calmly toward what any reasonably aware woman can tell is unmitigated, soul-crushing disaster, brushing away all her forebodings with slogans and faith. And there are moments later when Natalie’s inner voice becomes her personal Greek chorus, repeating, rephrasing, foreshadowing as her beliefs-based choices take her ever closer to an inescapable doom. You really, really want her to wake up and see there are other paths.

#Netgalley #influencer #Christianity #tradwife #novel #NewRelease #feminism #childabuse #producer #familyfarm #manosphere #politics #PenguinRandomHouse #CaroClaireBurke #debutauthor #DiabolicalLies #sex #pregnancy #mentalillness #contentwarning #Yesteryear