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Vol. III · No. 1
Cover of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Featured Review

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

by Robert Louis Stevenson  ·  reviewed by E. M. Larkin

A remarkably efficient Gothic mystery whose final confession transforms a pursuit of an external criminal into a study of appetite, secrecy, and self-deception.

Read the review →

In this issue

  1. A Farewell to ArmsErnest Hemingway
  2. Four Arthurian RomancesChrétien de Troyes
  3. A Honeymoon in SpaceGeorge Chetwynd Griffith
  4. Manon LescautAbbé Prévost
Cover of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Review Gothic Horror

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

by Robert Louis Stevenson

A remarkably efficient Gothic mystery whose final confession transforms a pursuit of an external criminal into a study of appetite, secrecy, and self-deception.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

Review Literary Fiction

A Farewell to Arms

by Ernest Hemingway

A devastating war-and-love novel whose plainspoken surface makes its evasions, tenderness, and final helplessness more—not less—emotionally complex.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Four Arthurian Romances by Chrétien de Troyes

Review Medieval Romance

Four Arthurian Romances

by Chrétien de Troyes

Four foundational Arthurian adventures whose courtly polish never conceals how violently love, reputation, and knightly identity are tested.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of A Honeymoon in Space by George Chetwynd Griffith

Review Science Fiction

A Honeymoon in Space

by George Chetwynd Griffith

An exuberant early space opera that sends a newly married couple on a Solar System grand tour packed with speculative spectacle, imperial confidence, and genuine cosmic peril.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Manon Lescaut by Abbé Prévost

Review Tragedy

Manon Lescaut

by Abbé Prévost

A swift, morally unstable tragedy in which des Grieux narrates love as irresistible fate even while his own choices carry him deeper into deception, crime, and ruin.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Middlemarch by George Eliot

Review Literary Fiction

Middlemarch

by George Eliot

A vast but intimate social novel in which four interlocking lives expose how idealism, money, marriage, and reputation shape one another in a provincial town.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Misplaced Battleship by Harry Harrison

Review Science Fiction

The Misplaced Battleship

by Harry Harrison

A sharp early Stainless Steel Rat caper that turns a planet-sized confidence trick into a duel between criminals who all think they are the smartest person in the room.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Review Science Fantasy

Thuvia, Maid of Mars

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

A fast Barsoom adventure that turns kidnapping, political framing, and weaponized imagination into a spirited bridge between John Carter's generation and Carthoris's.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Yeoman Adventurer by George W. Gough

Review Historical Adventure

The Yeoman Adventurer

by George W. Gough

A warm, energetic Jacobite adventure whose real appeal lies in watching a bookish Staffordshire farmer discover courage without losing his decency.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Eloisa: or, A Series of Original Letters by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Review Epistolary Romance

Eloisa: or, A Series of Original Letters

by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

An exhausting, influential epistolary novel that turns forbidden love into a lifelong argument about virtue, freedom, marriage, friendship, and the organization of a good household.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers

Review Cosmic Horror

The King in Yellow

by Robert W. Chambers

An uneven but foundational collection: four unforgettable weird tales followed by stranger, softer Parisian romances.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens

Review Mystery

The Mystery of Edwin Drood

by Charles Dickens

A gripping unfinished mystery whose atmosphere and psychological menace are complete even though its solution is not.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia by Sir Philip Sidney

Review Pastoral Romance

The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia

by Sir Philip Sidney

A vast, demanding pastoral romance whose disguises, poems, debates, and wars reward patient readers more than plot-only reading.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table by Rupert S. Holland

Review Medieval Romance

King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table

by Rupert S. Holland

A brisk, approachable Malory retelling that preserves the great arcs while compressing their contradictions and texture.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Review Historical Adventure

The Count of Monte Cristo

by Alexandre Dumas

A monumental revenge novel whose propulsion, disguises, and moral recoil justify its length.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas

Review Historical Adventure

Twenty Years After

by Alexandre Dumas

A darker, politically richer sequel that turns the musketeers' reunion into a study of age, loyalty, and failed rescue.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Review Family Classic

Little Women

by Louisa May Alcott

Warm, morally earnest, and psychologically alert—a family novel whose losses give its domestic pleasures lasting weight.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Blue Lagoon by H. de Vere Stacpoole

Review Castaway Romance

The Blue Lagoon

by H. de Vere Stacpoole

Vivid survival romance with an unforgettable setting, but its treatment of adolescent sexuality and race requires substantial caution.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Sex Life of the Gods by Michael Knerr

Review Science Fiction

The Sex Life of the Gods

by Michael Knerr

A fast, odd pulp-SF identity romance whose provocative title oversells its sexual content.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Under the Red Dragon by James Grant

Review Historical Adventure

Under the Red Dragon

by James Grant

A sprawling Victorian blend of Welsh romance and Crimean War adventure, vivid in action and heavy with period melodrama.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Review Classic Fantasy

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

by Lewis Carroll

A compact comic dream in which language, size, etiquette, and authority keep changing rules faster than Alice can master them.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar by Maurice Leblanc

Review Detective Fiction

The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar

by Maurice Leblanc

Nine elegant criminal puzzles in which Lupin wins as often through narrative control, disguise, and social performance as through theft.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Dracula by Bram Stoker

Review Gothic Horror

Dracula

by Bram Stoker

An epistolary pursuit novel that turns documents, friendship, blood, and modern transport into weapons against an ancient predator.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Review Gothic Romance

Jane Eyre

by Charlotte Brontë

A fiercely intimate Gothic bildungsroman whose romance matters because Jane refuses to purchase love with the loss of her conscience or independence.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Lady of the Lake by Walter Scott

Review Epic Poetry

The Lady of the Lake

by Walter Scott

A swift Highland romance whose concealed king, rival lovers, fiery cross, and code of hospitality turn six cantos into a remarkably efficient adventure.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton

Review Literary Fiction

The Man Who Was Thursday

by G. K. Chesterton

A comic spy chase that keeps removing disguises until political conspiracy becomes a theological nightmare about fear, suffering, and trust.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Review Classic Romance

Sense and Sensibility

by Jane Austen

A finely engineered domestic novel in which emotional restraint and emotional openness both fail when separated from honesty, judgment, and material reality.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The String of Pearls by James Malcolm Rymer and Thomas Peckett Prest

Review Gothic Horror

The String of Pearls

by James Malcolm Rymer and Thomas Peckett Prest

The expanded Sweeney Todd serial is lurid, repetitive, and enormously readable: a sprawling urban nightmare driven by secret machinery, corrupt institutions, and relentless pursuit.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis

Review Gothic Horror

The Monk

by Matthew Gregory Lewis

A sensational Gothic descent whose nested romances, convent horrors, ghosts, sexual violence, and demonic bargain deliberately test how much transgression the form can contain.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume I, translated by Richard F. Burton

Review Folklore

The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume I

by Anonymous; translated by Richard F. Burton

A foundational nested-story labyrinth: inventive, funny, violent, and culturally influential, but inseparable from Burton's ornate Victorian translation and intrusive apparatus.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Boats of the Glen Carrig by William Hope Hodgson

Review Nautical Horror

The Boats of the Glen Carrig

by William Hope Hodgson

A wonderfully strange survival voyage in which practical seamanship, grotesque ecosystems, and communal courage matter as much as the monsters.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart

Review Mystery

The Circular Staircase

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

A witty, foundational old-dark-house mystery whose murder, bank fraud, secret room, disguised suspects, and midnight intrusions reward patient untangling.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Ghost Pirates by William Hope Hodgson

Review Nautical Horror

The Ghost Pirates

by William Hope Hodgson

A remarkably controlled shipboard haunting that turns ordinary shadows and fouled rigging into a full supernatural boarding action.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Green Mummy by Fergus Hume

Review Mystery

The Green Mummy

by Fergus Hume

A busy archaeological mystery whose stolen mummy, missing emeralds, blackmail plot, and double murder eventually resolve into one satisfyingly tangled conspiracy.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson

Review Cosmic Horror

The House on the Borderland

by William Hope Hodgson

A foundational cosmic-horror novel that joins a besieged-house story to visions of deep time, universal extinction, and grief that outlasts the stars.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Leavenworth Case by Anna Katharine Green

Review Detective Fiction

The Leavenworth Case

by Anna Katharine Green

A historically important and still absorbing detective novel whose locked-house murder grows into a careful study of false inference, family secrecy, and obsessive love.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Mystery of a Hansom Cab by Fergus Hume

Review Detective Fiction

The Mystery of a Hansom Cab

by Fergus Hume

A landmark Melbourne mystery whose cab murder expands into a sharp story about evidence, class, blackmail, and the secrets protecting colonial respectability.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of That Affair Next Door by Anna Katharine Green

Review Detective Fiction

That Affair Next Door

by Anna Katharine Green

A wonderfully intricate identity mystery elevated by Amelia Butterworth, a proud, perceptive amateur who proves an equal—and an irritant—to Ebenezer Gryce.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Beetle by Richard Marsh

Review Gothic Horror

The Beetle

by Richard Marsh

A feverish multi-narrator Gothic thriller whose mesmeric intruder, political celebrity, experimental scientist, and abducted heroine drive one of the 1890s' strangest pursuit plots.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Secret of Chimneys by Agatha Christie

Review Mystery

The Secret of Chimneys

by Agatha Christie

A lively, twist-heavy country-house adventure: less a pure fair-play puzzle than an early Christie thriller, but full of wit, momentum, and memorable misdirection.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of A Room with a View by E. M. Forster

Review Literary Fiction

A Room with a View

by E. M. Forster

A witty and emotionally precise comedy about learning to live as freely as one feels—lighter than Forster's later novels, but already sharp about class, tourism, repression, and self-deception.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Carmen by Prosper Mérimée

Review Literary Fiction

Carmen

by Prosper Mérimée

A compact, coldly framed tragedy of obsession and possession whose famous central story remains gripping, even as its outsider gaze and ethnographic claims demand skeptical reading.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Review Literary Fiction

Crime and Punishment

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

A feverish psychological crime novel in which the question is never simply whether the murderer will be caught, but whether he can rejoin humanity after turning an idea into bloodshed.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Moby-Dick; or, The Whale by Herman Melville

Review Literary Fiction

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale

by Herman Melville

An inexhaustible sea epic that turns one doomed voyage into comedy, encyclopedia, labor history, metaphysical argument, and the most frightening portrait of obsession in American fiction.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Review Classic Romance

Pride and Prejudice

by Jane Austen

A near-perfect social comedy whose romance succeeds because attraction is not enough: Elizabeth and Darcy must revise the stories they tell about other people and themselves.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Review Tragedy

Romeo and Juliet

by William Shakespeare

Far more than a simple romance: a fast, volatile tragedy in which private love collides with inherited violence, bad timing, rigid authority, and the dangerous confidence of adults.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

Review Detective Fiction

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

by Arthur Conan Doyle

The collection that fixed Holmes in the popular imagination: twelve compact cases full of disguise, social pressure, visual clues, moral surprises, and the occasional failure that makes the successes more convincing.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery

Review Classic Romance

The Blue Castle

by L. M. Montgomery

A warm, sharply comic liberation story in which a false death sentence gives a frightened woman permission to live—and teaches her that freedom was never the family's to grant.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

Review Gothic Romance

The Mysteries of Udolpho

by Ann Radcliffe

A foundational Gothic romance whose castles and midnight terrors matter because they test whether sensibility can remain humane without surrendering judgment to fear.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Odyssey by Homer

Review Epic Poetry

The Odyssey

by Homer

Still a remarkably propulsive adventure, but its deepest power lies in the hard questions it asks about homecoming, identity, loyalty, and the violence required to restore order.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Mask of Mirrors by M. A. Carrick

Review Fantasy Mystery

The Mask of Mirrors

by M. A. Carrick

The Mask of Mirrors runs a con, a murder investigation, a narcotics plot and a dream-magic catastrophe through one city — and slowly reveals they were always the same design.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Liar’s Knot by M. A. Carrick

Review Fantasy Mystery

The Liar’s Knot

by M. A. Carrick

The Liar’s Knot is the sequel where Rook & Rose clicks: Ren, Grey and Vargo finally share one story, and the secrets they keep from each other start generating heat instead of just complexity.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Labyrinth’s Heart by M. A. Carrick

Review Fantasy Mystery

Labyrinth’s Heart

by M. A. Carrick

Labyrinth’s Heart has an improbable number of plots to close — Ren’s identities, Grey’s place in the city, Vargo’s origin, the medallions, the Wellspring, the colonial settlement — and the trick is that they were one plot the whole time.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart

Review Epic Fantasy

The Bone Shard Daughter

by Andrea Stewart

The Bone Shard Daughter builds an empire on two unforgettable hooks: islands that can sink beneath their citizens without warning, and a magic powered by chips of bone cut from those citizens’ skulls.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Bone Shard Emperor by Andrea Stewart

Review Epic Fantasy

The Bone Shard Emperor

by Andrea Stewart

The Bone Shard Emperor turns a mystery into a crisis of rule: Lin can abolish the tithe and smash the constructs, but she cannot make anyone trust the woman who inherited Shiyen’s palace.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Bone Shard War by Andrea Stewart

Review Epic Fantasy

The Bone Shard War

by Andrea Stewart

The Bone Shard War makes its heroes choose a political future instead of just defeating another claimant — and the answer is that the throne itself has to go.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri

Review Epic Fantasy

The Jasmine Throne

by Tasha Suri

The Jasmine Throne is a patient, politically layered fantasy about two women who need each other desperately and do not mean the same thing by freedom.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Oleander Sword by Tasha Suri

Review Epic Fantasy

The Oleander Sword

by Tasha Suri

The Oleander Sword is the trilogy’s war book and its sharpest study of betrayal: Malini’s rebellion runs on alliances, grain and priestly approval, and every one of them costs her something she loves.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Lotus Empire by Tasha Suri

Review Epic Fantasy

The Lotus Empire

by Tasha Suri

The Lotus Empire ends the trilogy as a negotiation rather than a rematch: empire and divinity turn out to be competing forms of possession, and neither woman can beat the gods alone.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Daughters’ War by Christopher Buehlman

Review Dark Fantasy

The Daughters’ War

by Christopher Buehlman

The Daughters’ War is not a lighter companion to The Blacktongue Thief but its bleak foundation: the goblin war that turned a young Spanth noblewoman into the severe knight Kinch would later meet.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Dragon Republic by R. F. Kuang

Review Military Fantasy

The Dragon Republic

by R. F. Kuang

The Dragon Republic widens The Poppy War’s tragedy into a civil-war novel about compromised resistance: every apparent solution contains the next disaster.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Burning God by R. F. Kuang

Review Military Fantasy

The Burning God

by R. F. Kuang

The Burning God is a deliberately punishing conclusion: it hands Rin the command and power she spent two books seeking, then asks whether a revolutionary trained only for war can build anything after the enemy falls.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Review Science Fantasy

Harrow the Ninth

by Tamsyn Muir

Harrow the Ninth is a puzzle built from grief — second-person narration, false flashbacks and a missing name, all because Harrow has made her own mind difficult to enter.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Review Science Fantasy

Nona the Ninth

by Tamsyn Muir

Nona the Ninth changes scale without lowering the stakes: six months in the life of a cheerful young woman who loves her school friends and dogs — inside a besieged city, in a borrowed body, six months old.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Grey Sister by Mark Lawrence

Review Epic Fantasy

Grey Sister

by Mark Lawrence

Grey Sister deepens the convent-school premise by turning education into politics: Nona is far more capable than she was in Red Sister, and greater skill only makes her useful to more dangerous adults.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Holy Sister by Mark Lawrence

Review Epic Fantasy

Holy Sister

by Mark Lawrence

Holy Sister closes the trilogy on two clocks at once — the desperate flight after Grey Sister, and the war three years later — and lets the gap between them show how youthful crisis becomes adult responsibility.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Warrior-Prophet by R. Scott Bakker

Review Fantasy

The Warrior-Prophet

by R. Scott Bakker

The Warrior-Prophet turns a crusading army into a laboratory for belief: Kellhus gains his following not through prophecy but by reading needs, predicting reactions and converting suffering into proof of his authority.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Thousandfold Thought by R. Scott Bakker

Review Fantasy

The Thousandfold Thought

by R. Scott Bakker

The Thousandfold Thought is the trilogy’s shortest and densest volume: the battles matter, but the true destination is a conversation — Kellhus meeting the father whose plan set everything in motion.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Scar by China Miéville

Review Science Fantasy

The Scar

by China Miéville

The Scar is both an adventure novel and a refusal of adventure’s usual promise: Bellis Coldwine wants to go home, while everyone around her treats motion as reinvention, conquest or escape.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Iron Council by China Miéville

Review Science Fantasy

Iron Council

by China Miéville

Iron Council is Bas-Lag’s most openly political novel: a revolutionary city story, a western about a stolen train, and a meditation on when symbols help movements — and when they consume them.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Call of the Bone Ships by R. J. Barker

Review Military Fantasy

Call of the Bone Ships

by R. J. Barker

Call of the Bone Ships turns a single ship’s redemption into a challenge to an entire economy: the sea dragons have returned, and a hold full of dying prisoners leads to a crime the Hundred Isles’ own rulers are committing.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Bone Ship’s Wake by R. J. Barker

Review Military Fantasy

The Bone Ship’s Wake

by R. J. Barker

The Bone Ship’s Wake is a finale about the cost of becoming a legend: Joron is now the feared Black Pirate, and the reputation has bought him neither Meas nor mercy.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Bitter Twins by Jen Williams

Review Science Fantasy

The Bitter Twins

by Jen Williams

The Bitter Twins treats the Jure’lia’s return not as a looming apocalypse but as an occupation already under way — changing bodies, loyalties and the land itself.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Poison Song by Jen Williams

Review Science Fantasy

The Poison Song

by Jen Williams

The Poison Song closes the Winnowing Flame trilogy with the scale of an invasion epic and the intimacy of a found-family story — and a victory bought with the life of the woman who wins it.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Book That Broke the World by Mark Lawrence

Review Science Fantasy

The Book That Broke the World

by Mark Lawrence

The Book That Broke the World is a sequel about who pays for protected knowledge — and what happens when the people the Library excluded stop asking politely.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Book That Held Her Heart by Mark Lawrence

Review Science Fantasy

The Book That Held Her Heart

by Mark Lawrence

The Book That Held Her Heart closes the Library Trilogy by turning its temporal puzzle into an argument about care — what a civilization keeps, and who it decides belongs inside its future.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Hunger of the Gods by John Gwynne

Review Epic Fantasy

The Hunger of the Gods

by John Gwynne

The Hunger of the Gods is a true middle volume in the best sense: it widens the war, separates the people you most want reunited, and makes every victory create a new obligation.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Fury of the Gods by John Gwynne

Review Epic Fantasy

The Fury of the Gods

by John Gwynne

The Fury of the Gods gathers the Bloodsworn Saga’s scattered quests into one war against Lik-Rifa — and keeps its feet in the mud of the shield wall even as gods take the field.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Tyranny of Faith by Richard Swan

Review Legal Fantasy

The Tyranny of Faith

by Richard Swan

The Tyranny of Faith expands Richard Swan’s legal-investigation series into imperial horror without discarding the procedure — and makes its hero the most frightening thing in it.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Trials of Empire by Richard Swan

Review Legal Fantasy

The Trials of Empire

by Richard Swan

The Trials of Empire is less a courtroom novel than a test of whether law means anything after the court disappears.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty

Review Historical Fantasy

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

by Shannon Chakraborty

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi gives the “one last job” story to a hero fantasy almost never allows: a middle-aged pirate captain, mother and legend of the Indian Ocean, blackmailed out of retirement for a rescue that is nothing like it appears.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Bone Ships by R. J. Barker

Review Military Fantasy

The Bone Ships

by R. J. Barker

The Bone Ships opens with a drunk captain losing his command in a beach duel, and builds from that humiliation one of modern fantasy’s best studies of earned authority — aboard a ship built of dragon bones.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Book That Wouldn’t Burn by Mark Lawrence

Review Science Fantasy

The Book That Wouldn’t Burn

by Mark Lawrence

The Book That Wouldn’t Burn is a library fantasy with no coziness in it: Mark Lawrence’s vast underground archive imprisons its keepers, outlives its founders and quietly keeps a two-species war running.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig

Review Romantasy

The Knight and the Moth

by Rachel Gillig

The Knight and the Moth begins as gothic convent horror and sharpens into a warning: destroying the institution that owned you is not the same as being free.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Red Sister by Mark Lawrence

Review Epic Fantasy

Red Sister

by Mark Lawrence

Red Sister opens with one of fantasy’s most quoted first lines about the difficulty of killing a nun, then spends four hundred pages on a harder question: how does a violent child learn to trust?

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Ninth Rain by Jen Williams

Review Science Fantasy

The Ninth Rain

by Jen Williams

The Ninth Rain straps an archaeological expedition, a vampiric fallen civilization and a returning alien apocalypse into one novel — and makes the combination feel inevitable rather than crowded.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Blood Over Bright Haven by M. L. Wang

Review Fantasy

Blood Over Bright Haven

by M. L. Wang

Blood Over Bright Haven opens as a dark-academia success story and slowly reveals itself as an indictment of the institution it seemed to celebrate.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman

Review Dark Fantasy

The Blacktongue Thief

by Christopher Buehlman

The Blacktongue Thief is carried, start to finish, by its narrator.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Justice of Kings by Richard Swan

Review Legal Fantasy

The Justice of Kings

by Richard Swan

The Justice of Kings is a legal procedural in armor.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Shadow of the Gods by John Gwynne

Review Epic Fantasy

The Shadow of the Gods

by John Gwynne

The Shadow of the Gods follows three apparently separate stories through Vigrið, a land broken by the ancient war and death of its gods.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Silverblood Promise by James Logan

Review Fantasy Mystery

The Silverblood Promise

by James Logan

The Silverblood Promise is a fantasy mystery that knows exactly what it is: a disgraced young noble, a murdered father, a cryptic dying message and a glittering merchant city with a rotten core.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez

Review Literary Epic Fantasy

The Spear Cuts Through Water

by Simon Jimenez

The Spear Cuts Through Water is the most formally daring book on this list and one of the most rewarding.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Sword of Kaigen by M. L. Wang

Review Military Fantasy

The Sword of Kaigen

by M. L. Wang

The Sword of Kaigen is billed as military fantasy and delivers one of the genre's most devastating battle sequences, but its real subject is a family.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett

Review Fantasy Mystery

The Tainted Cup

by Robert Jackson Bennett

The Tainted Cup is the most purely enjoyable kind of fantasy mystery: a locked-room impossibility, a brilliant detective who never leaves her rooms, and a long-suffering assistant sent out to do the legwork.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie

Review Fantasy

Last Argument of Kings

by Joe Abercrombie

Joe Abercrombie ends his original First Law trilogy by giving almost everyone what they thought they wanted.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Mad Ship by Robin Hobb

Review Fantasy

The Mad Ship

by Robin Hobb

The Mad Ship takes every conflict established in Ship of Magic and removes the boundaries that kept it manageable.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Ship of Destiny by Robin Hobb

Review Fantasy

Ship of Destiny

by Robin Hobb

Ship of Destiny brings Robin Hobb’s sprawling maritime trilogy to a conclusion without pretending that convergence is the same thing as simplicity.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Strength of the Few by James Islington

Review Fantasy

The Strength of the Few

by James Islington

The Strength of the Few begins by refusing the easiest sequel James Islington could have written.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Wine of Angels by Phil Rickman

Review Supernatural Mystery

The Wine of Angels

by Phil Rickman

Phil Rickman's Merrily Watkins series opener is a slow-burning folk-horror mystery in a Herefordshire cider village where the beauty and the danger grow from the same roots.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Darkness That Comes Before by R. Scott Bakker

Review Fantasy

The Darkness That Comes Before

by R. Scott Bakker

R. Scott Bakker's forbidding debut opens The Prince of Nothing: a holy war, a monastic order that has weaponized reason itself, and one of dark fantasy's most unsettling protagonists.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Dune by Frank Herbert

Review Science Fiction

Dune

by Frank Herbert

Frank Herbert's 1965 monument: a betrayed noble heir becomes the messiah of a desert planet's oppressed people, in an epic of ecology, religion, and empire that remade science fiction.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Hyperion by Dan Simmons

Review Science Fiction

Hyperion

by Dan Simmons

Dan Simmons's Hugo-winning Canterbury Tales in space: seven pilgrims travel to the lair of a lethal, time-warping creature called the Shrike, and six of them tell the story of how they came to this doomed voyage.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe

Review Science Fantasy

The Shadow of the Torturer

by Gene Wolfe

Gene Wolfe's dense, allusive masterwork opens The Book of the New Sun: a journeyman torturer, exiled for showing mercy, narrates his journey across a dying Earth in prose that rewards — and demands — rereading.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Empire of Silence by Christopher Ruocchio

Review Science Fantasy

Empire of Silence

by Christopher Ruocchio

Christopher Ruocchio's Sun Eater saga opens with a confession: Hadrian Marlowe, the man who burned a sun and killed billions, tells his own story from the beginning — a lush, Gene-Wolfe-inflected space opera.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Heroes Die by Matthew Woodring Stover

Review Science Fantasy

Heroes Die

by Matthew Woodring Stover

Matthew Stover's savage genre-collision: on a future Earth, an actor is sent through a portal to a fantasy world to commit murder as entertainment — and this time the studio wants his estranged wife to die on camera.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Perdido Street Station by China Miéville

Review Science Fantasy

Perdido Street Station

by China Miéville

China Miéville's New Weird landmark: in the vast diseased city of New Crobuzon, a rogue scientist's experiment looses a plague of soul-eating moths — a grotesque, teeming, politically furious masterwork.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Review Science Fantasy

Gideon the Ninth

by Tamsyn Muir

Tamsyn Muir's lesbian-necromancers-in-space sensation: a foul-mouthed swordswoman and the bone-witch she despises are summoned to a crumbling gothic palace where the galaxy's necromancers are dying one by one.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny

Review Science Fantasy

Lord of Light

by Roger Zelazny

Roger Zelazny's Hugo-winning fusion of science fiction and Hindu-Buddhist myth: on a colonized world, the crew who became gods rule the descendants of the colonists — until one of them rebels and becomes the Buddha.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Red Rising by Pierce Brown

Review Science Fantasy

Red Rising

by Pierce Brown

Pierce Brown's blood-soaked class-war epic: a low-caste miner on Mars, believing he digs to make the planet habitable, learns it was terraformed generations ago — and infiltrates the ruling caste's brutal academy to burn it down.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

Review Romantasy

Fourth Wing

by Rebecca Yarros

Rebecca Yarros's genre-devouring phenomenon: a physically fragile scribe's daughter is forced into a dragon-riders' war college where the cadets kill each other and the state's official history cannot survive scrutiny.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros

Review Romantasy

Iron Flame

by Rebecca Yarros

The Empyrean's second flight: Violet survives Basgiath only to face a new vice-commandant, a divided rebellion, and a wall the regime built to hide what it has done — a bigger, baggier, angrier sequel.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros

Review Romantasy

Onyx Storm

by Rebecca Yarros

Book three of the Empyrean sends Violet beyond the wall in search of allies as the war for Navarre turns outward — the widest-ranging entry yet, and the one most burdened by its middle-trilogy machinery.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Quicksilver by Callie Hart

Review Romantasy

Quicksilver

by Callie Hart

Callie Hart's BookTok breakout: a thief from the desert city of Zilvaren is dragged through a portal into a brutal Fae world, where she discovers she is its long-awaited Alchemist and a buried war is waiting — the opener of Fae & Alchemy.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Brimstone by Callie Hart

Review Romantasy

Brimstone

by Callie Hart

The second Fae & Alchemy novel deepens Saeris's education in magic, politics, and Kingfisher's secrets as the stakes widen beyond Yvelia — a longer, lore-heavier sequel to Quicksilver.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Babel by R. F. Kuang

Review Fantasy

Babel

by R. F. Kuang

R. F. Kuang's dark-academia landmark: a Canton-born orphan is trained at Oxford's silver-working translation institute, and discovers that the magic funding the British Empire runs on the violence of translation itself.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Katabasis by R. F. Kuang

Review Fantasy

Katabasis

by R. F. Kuang

R. F. Kuang sends two rival Cambridge magicians into the Eight Courts of Hell to retrieve their dead adviser — a dark-academia descent where the underworld looks suspiciously like graduate school.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams

Review Fantasy

The Dragonbone Chair

by Tad Williams

Tad Williams's 1988 landmark opens Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn: a kitchen boy, a haunted castle built on older ruins, and a slow, patient epic that taught the modern genre how much an ending owes its beginning.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

Review Science Fantasy

Dungeon Crawler Carl

by Matt Dinniman

The apocalypse arrives while Carl is rescuing his ex's cat: Matt Dinniman's LitRPG sensation turns an eighteen-floor alien game show into a furious, very funny story about people refusing to become products.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson

Review Fantasy

Gardens of the Moon

by Steven Erikson

Steven Erikson opens the Malazan Book of the Fallen in the middle of a war the reader doesn't yet understand — bewildering for a hundred pages, and a remarkable, contested, compassionate epic once the picture forms.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

Review Fantasy

The Lies of Locke Lamora

by Scott Lynch

Scott Lynch's debut heist fantasy: a gang of gentleman con artists fleeces Camorr's nobility until a criminal war finds them first — inventive, viciously funny, and far crueler than its caper premise suggests.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Malice by John Gwynne

Review Fantasy

Malice

by John Gwynne

John Gwynne's Gemmell-winning debut opens The Faithful and the Fallen: a blacksmith's son, a loyal swordsman, and a coming God-War in a world where nearly everyone believes they've chosen the righteous side.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Blackwater by Michael McDowell

Review Horror

Blackwater

by Michael McDowell

Michael McDowell's six-volume Southern Gothic saga: fifty years of the Caskey family of Perdido, Alabama — marriages, money, and matriarchal warfare, with something ancient and aquatic living quietly in their midst.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie

Review Fantasy

Before They Are Hanged

by Joe Abercrombie

The second volume of The First Law — three journeys, two wars, and a cast beginning to discover that pain can improve a person without making anyone good.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb

Review Fantasy

Ship of Magic

by Robin Hobb

Robin Hobb trades Fitz's first-person intimacy for a sprawling merchant-and-pirate ensemble and somehow raises her game — the first Liveship Traders novel, built on a magic system that doubles as a moral trap.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Devils by Joe Abercrombie

Review Fantasy

The Devils

by Joe Abercrombie

Joe Abercrombie's series-launching return outside the First Law world — a fast, funny, blood-soaked monsters-work-for-the-Church adventure with a golden heart.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Godkiller by Hannah Kaner

Review Fantasy

Godkiller

by Hannah Kaner

Hannah Kaner's No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling debut and the opening of the Fallen Gods trilogy — a lean, propulsive, big-hearted gods-and-godkillers fantasy.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Unsouled by Will Wight

Review Fantasy

Unsouled

by Will Wight

The lean, propulsive opening volume of the twelve-book Cradle series — a clever underdog story that serves as the gateway to Western progression fantasy.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Stone Sky by N. K. Jemisin

Review Fantasy

The Stone Sky

by N. K. Jemisin

The Hugo-, Nebula-, and Locus-winning conclusion to the Broken Earth trilogy — a finale that actually delivers on everything its predecessors set up.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Obelisk Gate by N. K. Jemisin

Review Fantasy

The Obelisk Gate

by N. K. Jemisin

The Hugo-winning middle volume of the Broken Earth trilogy — a deepening, slower-burning sequel that splits its focus between mother and daughter.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

Review Fantasy

The Way of Kings

by Brandon Sanderson

The first volume of The Stormlight Archive — a thousand pages of storm-scarred worldbuilding that redefines what maximalist epic fantasy can do.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin

Review Fantasy

The Fifth Season

by N. K. Jemisin

Three women, three timelines, one broken continent — a Hugo-winning novel whose structural conceit is inseparable from its rage.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie

Review Fantasy

The Blade Itself

by Joe Abercrombie

The book that reset commercial fantasy for a generation — Abercrombie's debut is grim, funny, character-first, and quietly furious about the fantasy genre it inherited.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson

Review Fantasy

The Final Empire

by Brandon Sanderson

The first Mistborn novel — the heist-fantasy that made Sanderson a household name, and the clearest demonstration of what his engineered-magic approach can achieve.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of The Will of the Many by James Islington

Review Fantasy

The Will of the Many

by James Islington

A Roman-imperial dark academia where citizens cede their life force upward — and the orphan refusing to play might be hiding more than the empire.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E. Schwab

Review Dark Fantasy

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

by V. E. Schwab

Three women across five centuries, each turned by the last in a chain of makers — a sapphic gothic of hunger, vow, and slow rot.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Alchemised by SenLinYu

Review Dark Fantasy

Alchemised

by SenLinYu

A thousand-page dark fantasy in three parts: an alchemist erases her own memories of the man she loved so that her captors cannot tear him out of her.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Empire of the Dawn by Jay Kristoff

Review Dark Fantasy

Empire of the Dawn

by Jay Kristoff

The finale of the silversaint trilogy — Augustin, Charbourg, and the long con that finally lifts Daysdeath. Every framing device collapses; every promise comes due.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff

Review Dark Fantasy

Empire of the Vampire

by Jay Kristoff

A framed confession from the last silversaint — a brutal, sprawling, devastatingly assured opening to a new vampire trilogy.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Empire of the Damned by Jay Kristoff

Review Dark Fantasy

Empire of the Damned

by Jay Kristoff

The middle volume — Gabriel and Dior pulled apart, Aaron turned, the secret of the Five Bloodlines, and a final-page reveal that turns the page upside-down.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin
Cover of Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey

Review Science Fiction

Leviathan Wakes

by James S. A. Corey

The opening volume of The Expanse — a noir detective and an idealistic ice hauler, dragged together by an alien weapon.

★★★★★ E. M. Larkin

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