Review of A Far Wilder Magic, by Allison Saft

Fantasy, Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

A Far Wilder Magic

by Allison Saft
read by Jesse Vilinsky

Macmillan Young Listeners, 2022. 14 hours, 36 minutes.
Review written December 10, 2022, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review

A Far Wilder Magic is an atmospheric and amazing young adult fantasy novel about a world slightly removed from ours, but not all that different. It’s not a medieval world, but a country from about a hundred years ago, where alchemy is the road to political accomplishments in the country of New Albion.

Margaret lives alone, cutting wood, doing chores, keeping their manor going while her mother is off on a quest for alchemical supplies. She’s been gone months longer than usual, and Margaret’s not sure if she’s coming back. Then at night she sees the magical white fox, the hala, and knows the Hunt will be coming to her small town.

But first, a young man comes to her isolated manor. He’s looking for an alchemical apprenticeship with her mother, and he won’t take No for an answer. This is Wes’s last chance to get a sponsor and make something of himself. He’s not good at studying, but he does have a talent for alchemy, if someone will give him a chance. He’s a hard person to turn away, however much Margaret doesn’t like him.

And then Margaret realizes that Wes might be her only chance to enter the hunt, kill the hala, and win back her mother’s attention. She is a crack shot, but she needs an alchemist. And Wes needs a chance with her mother, too. So they start an uneasy alliance.

But both Wes and Margaret are outsiders, not welcomed into this New Albion tradition. They first must compete to win their place in the top tier, and even that is fraught with danger.

And yes, we’ve got an enemies-to-lovers plot going on. But it’s skillfully done, as we see deeply into the characters of both Wes and Margaret — both their insecurities and their kind hearts. By the time they come together, we’re completely on their sides. The spell is woven gently and believably, and it all builds to danger and difficult decisions at the time of the Hunt.

Fair warning is there are a couple of fairly intense sex scenes. The skillful building of the romance makes the intensity seem right for this book.

A marvelously woven novel about two teens figuring out what they want out of life and how to get there.

allisonsaft.com
wednesdaybooks.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Rebel Witch, by Kristen Ciccarelli, read by Grace Gray

Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Rebel Witch

by Kristen Ciccarelli
read by Grace Gray

Listening Library, 2025. 13 hours, 44 minutes.
Review written March 4, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Fabulous news! The Crimson Moth series is a duology! So we don’t have to wait for another volume!

And she pulled off a very satisfying conclusion to the story.

Once again we’ve got the conflict of a witch and a witch hunter in love with each other, but on opposite sides. In fact, the book starts out with Gideon planning to assassinate Rune on the distant island where she fled. He’s jealously watching her at the party where her engagement to a prince is being celebrated. But Gideon hesitates…

And one thing leads to another, and they end up traveling together back to their home island – with neither one in good graces with their ruler. They’re basically each planning to betray the other… or are they?

Who’s in danger and what they’re planning seems to go back and forth in this book, but I appreciated that it was all in a way that made sense to me as a listener. The trouble is that both sides in the conflict have a ruthless, terrible leader, so we don’t root for either leader to succeed – but we do root for Gideon and Rune’s love to somehow win out.

And I probably shouldn’t say a lot more about the plot. There’s lots of death and danger, and, yes, some sex, and Rune and Gideon each find allies and enemies in surprising places.

And I’m so glad the author didn’t leave our heroes in danger, waiting for another installment!

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Review of Onyx Storm, by Rebecca Yarros, read by Rebecca Soler

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Fiction Review 0

Onyx Storm

by Rebecca Yarros
read by Rebecca Soler, Teddy Hamilton, Justis Bolding, and Jasmin Walker

Recorded Books, 2025. 23 hours, 53 minutes.
Review written February 26, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.

I’m going to sound like a bit of a curmudgeon in this review, so let me begin by saying that I don’t review books I don’t like. And I certainly don’t spend 24 hours listening to a book I don’t like. So I did enjoy this book, and I’m very engaged with this series and will be reading the next book. I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as the first two, though.

First off, this series doesn’t waste any time catching up the reader on what went before. It’s very much a continued story, not “companion novels.” It had been a year since I listened to the previous book, and I didn’t really remember the many characters, who was a dragon rider as opposed to who was a griffin flyer, for example. (Though, funny thing, the people I remembered least were the ones most in danger of dying – they felt like the red shirts of the story.)

So I’m only going to speak in general terms about what happens. It’s the continued story of Violet Sorengale – a cadet at Bezgaeth War College who is bonded to two powerful dragons. Oh, I should say that I loved the portrayal of Andarna as an adolescent dragon. Her whiny tone was delightful! A continued strong point of this series is the characters and the bonds they’re forming with each other.

First, there’s lots and lots of sex. I did laugh when Violet and Xaden broke furniture again. Though it’s kind of their trademark. But I also laughed about two-thirds into the book when they were obviously going to have sex and they closed and locked a door (using lesser magic) – and then the author actually ended the scene! I felt like that was a progression in Violet’s experience. She no longer had to gasp at every touch.

A good chunk of this book was a group of them exploring some distant islands, looking for allies and for more dragons of Andarna’s kind. That was an interesting development. But then each island served a different god and had different unusual customs and hoops that visitors had to go through – and that felt silly and unlikely after a while.

Speaking of contrived things, I recently finished another book using the trope of Everyone-Has-A-Magical-Power – and there are always ways that particular trope doesn’t work for me – you really do have to not think about it too hard. Because I’m sorry, but shadows do not have substance! The whole shadow-wielding idea – that you can make shadows hold someone up while having sex or choke someone in a battle – yeah, I have trouble believing that would work. And some of the other “signets” are problematic for me as well. But mostly, in the middle of the story, that’s not a big issue, and I’m caught up in the tale.

Now, the last big climactic battle took three hours of the audiobook. And that’s after a whole lot of fighting in the book already. So this is an audiobook where the narrator is describing lots of fighting and lots of sex – and it must have been exhausting for her! But by the time I was listening to the final battle, the narrator’s voice expressing excitement kind of flew past me. Exciting thing after exciting thing – and it stopped being exciting for me.

Now, I listen to audiobooks while I’m doing other things, so to really remember what’s going on, before the next book comes out, I should probably try rereading the entire thing in print. Trouble is, I doubt I’d want to give that much time to it – so I’ll probably be content with enjoying the story but maybe being a little confused – as I was with this one.

Speaking of confusion – the ending is kind of the opposite of a cliffhanger. A cliffhanger ending leaves you wondering what will come next. This ending left me wondering what just happened.

Without giving anything away, the big final battle took the last three hours of the book – and the final part of it was when we got to hear from three more narrators, for a nice change of pace and more perspectives on this enormous fight. At the end of the battle, Violet passed out. The story starts again twelve hours later in a different location, and Violet is told several very surprising things – but we don’t know why or how they happened. And then the book ends.

So by the time the next book comes out, I’m not sure I’ll remember what I was confused about. I’m also not at all sure where it’s going next – but I am sure that I’m going to want to go along for the ride.

rebeccayarros.com

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Review of Into the Bloodred Woods, by Martha Brockenbrough

Fairy Tale Variant, Fantasy, Teen Fiction Review 0

Into the Bloodred Woods

by Martha Brockenbrough

Scholastic Press, 2021. 354 pages.
Review written October 18, 2022, from a library book

In this very dark and atmospheric fairy tale-esque young adult novel, we’ve got fairy tale tropes all interwoven throughout a story that implies here’s what really happened, and the tales you’ve heard were changed for an audience of children.

There’s a storyteller featured in short interludes between the parts, weaving tales that become truth as they are repeated. But the book promises us the real story at the start:

This is the story of a werebear and her brother, one of whom will inherit a kingdom . . .

It’s the story of another werebear who wanted to burn it all down . . .

Of a sister who traded everything to spin grass into gold . . .

Of an angry musician who loved a gentle werewolf . . .

Of a girl who loved a singing forest more than life itself . . .

And of a kingdom shattered like a mirror, the pieces of which can be put back together, but only by someone brave enough to look.

The book has its heart in a singing forest, a forest just outside a kingdom.

The forest started singing when a girl named Esme struck a bargain in exchange for the magic that she needed to save her sister’s life. And that was necessary because their father had lied to the king to make himself seem important; he’d claimed that he had a daughter of surpassing beauty who could spin grass into gold.

And what was that bargain? (I told you the book is dark.) Esme traded her womb for magic. She buried it in the soil of the forest, and the forest taught her to spin grass into gold.

So her sister married the king and had twin babies, a boy and a girl. The girl was born first, though it wasn’t traditional for a girl to inherit the kingdom. This set them up for a rivalry.

But many things happen before the children become teens. Esme flees from the king to the forest where she has a daughter of her own, Capella. And the main characters of the book are Hans and Greta, the children of the one woodsman in the forest, and the king and queen’s children, Ursula and Albrecht. Ursula is a werebear, and Hans is a werewolf.

In this kingdom, werecreatures are treated as lesser citizens, and even Ursula must sleep in a cage at night. And when Hans and Greta’s parents die of a fever, they go to the kingdom to buy provisions, but get taken as servants to the castle.

Albrecht uses Hans to help him make mechanical creatures. He dreams of ruling the kingdom, protecting it with an army of mechanical soldiers. If he can only get the mechanisms right.

Albrecht is fascinated by how things work and what makes creatures alive. Aren’t those alive who can feel pain? He thinks about ways of causing pain….

And the kingdom is funded by the gold given as the queen’s dowry. But this gold has a weakness — it disintegrates when touched by human blood.

Throughout the book, many themes from fairy tales get pulled into a twisty atmospheric tale of powerful evil and those who would stand up against it.

marthabrockenbrough.com
scholastic.com

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Review of A Thousand Steps Into Night, by Traci Chee

Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

A Thousand Steps Into Night

by Traci Chee

Clarion Books, 2022. 373 pages.
Review written October 7, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

From the very beginning, I felt pulled into a fairy tale. Here are the wonderful first few paragraphs:

Long ago, in the noble realm of Awara, where all creation, from the tallest peaks to the lowliest beetles, had forms both humble and divine, there lived an unremarkable girl named Otori Miuko. The daughter of the innkeeper at the only remaining guesthouse in the village of Nihaoi, Miuko was average by every conceivable standard — beauty, intelligence, the circumference of her hips — except one.

She was uncommonly loud.

Once, when she was two years old, her mother was wrestling her into one of the inn’s cedar tubs when Miuko, who had no plans for a bath that day, screamed so violently that the foundations shook, the bells rang in the nearby temple, and a respectable chunk of the dilapidated bridge spanning the river a full quarter-mile away let out a horrified groan and slid, fainting, into the water.

That was mere coincidence. Miuko had not, in fact, been the cause of an earthquake (at least not in this instance), but several of the priests, upon hearing of her peculiar vocal faculties, rushed to exorcise her all the same. No matter what spells tthey chanted or incense they burned, however, they were ultimately disappointed to discover that she was not, in fact, possessed. Instead of a demon, what her parents had on their hands was merely a loud child. Worse, a loud girl.

As you may guess, through the book, Miuko continues to be distinguished by qualities that don’t fit the expectations of the culture around her for a girl of the serving class. And it’s lovely to watch Miuko becoming more comfortable with who she is.

As the story begins, Miuko is met on the road by a death demon, who curses her with a kiss. The soles of Miuko’s feet turn bright blue, and wherever she steps, plants die. Worse, the blue color starts traveling up her legs. If it continues, she’ll become a death demon herself.

So in order to try to free herself from the curse and keep her humanity, Miuko must travel a thousand steps to the temple of the December God. Fortunately, she finds companions along her way, beginning with a magpie spirit who can take the form of a boy. Unfortunately, she also gets the attention of a demon inhabiting the body of a prince, and he wants to stop her.

It makes for a wonderful quest to heal Miuko’s curse, and ultimately to save the nation. The Japanese-inspired background of this fairy tale-type story gives it beautiful atmosphere.

The one thing I wasn’t crazy about is that there’s a time travel paradox in the middle of the book, and none of the characters comment on it at all, but just accept it as magic. Honestly, by glossing over it and not trying to explain it, the author pretty much pulls it off. But I’m persnickety about things like that, and it detracted just a tiny bit for me. But I still highly recommend this book to anyone who loves fantasy.

tracichee.com
epicreads.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Powerless, by Lauren Roberts

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Teen Fiction Review 0

Powerless

by Lauren Roberts
read by Chase Brown and Cecily Bednar Schmidt

Simon & Schuster Audio, 2023. 17 hours, 28 minutes.
Review written February 20, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.

I only review books I like. That has always been true. I don’t ever want to imply that my judgment is better than people who like the book – there are always some people. And I don’t really want authors to find a bad review of their book on my site. Lately, if I have too many reservations, I’ve decided just to pass on reviewing the book. The trouble with that is that later on I forget what my reservations were, and just remember a general negative. So – with Powerless, I decided to review it on my blog only. I won’t even link to the review on social media, so think of this as bonus content for those who subscribe to my blog.

All that said – I did enjoy the book, and I did listen to all 17.5 hours of it. Well, the second time I tried. This book is wildly popular with our library customers, and since I love YA Fantasy novels, I decided to find out what all the fuss was about. But when I started listening to it this time, it was just familiar enough for me to remember that I’d tried listening to it earlier and had given up after several chapters. This time I was feeling more tolerant of tropes and listened to the whole thing. And enjoyed it.

But let me talk about tropes. This one has All the Tropes. We start out with the noble thief, living on the streets, expert at thieving and fighting – but good at heart, forced into it because her father was murdered when she was thirteen.

Then there’s the trope of everyone has a magic power. In this case, the explanation is that there was a plague that killed off most of the population, and those that survived have magic powers. But those who do not have magic powers – Ordinaries – are considered diseased and a blight on the kingdom and must be executed.

That part – executing the outcast group – is a trope, too. But it strikes way too close to home as blaming a group of outcasts for all society’s ills is a hallmark of fascism and is way, way too relevant today.

Another trope is the evil, horrible, repressive king (the one whose idea it is to execute all the Ordinaries) – but with a son who is good despite his evil father. Well, in this case, they’re also half-heartedly going for a love triangle trope – so the king has two sons, both who end up interested in our heroine. But I say it’s half-hearted, because only the younger son is also a viewpoint character, and it’s with him that we get lots of talk about “wanting” each other.

Let me add in here that there’s no sex in this book, but oh my goodness there’s enormous sexual tension – even some sleeping together in vulnerable situations where sex doesn’t happen. Lots of touching in provocative ways. Going out on a limb, I’m pretty sure there’s eventually going to be sex between those characters or the readers will be up at arms.

But the trope I didn’t like at all was the competition where lots of the competitors kill each other. Because again, it was half-hearted. Called the “purging trials,” it was never remotely clear what the point was. We didn’t even find out who won at the end – because votes from spectators are part of the score, and they never told us how that went, even though we found out who finished the last trial first. We also didn’t get the scoring details of the earlier trials. We were told that the “future enforcer” needed to win to impress the people of the kingdom – but not clear why or what would happen if he didn’t. Or what the winner even wins. And it’s clear from the start that many die in the Purging Trials – but many don’t die. I never understood why killing other competitors was necessary or expected. With the kingdom watching, did it ever occur to anyone to demand that those who murder other contestants be held accountable? And even if there’s immunity from killing someone in the trials, why wouldn’t many of the competitors simply refuse to do that? Our protagonists make alliances with some of the other competitors, but others seem to be fair game – and part of the way they’re shown as evil is because they attack friends of our protagonists. Because that’s worse than the killing our main characters do? It just all feels like an excuse to have some killing and show how evil the king is who encourages that – but also the evil characters who attack the people we like.

And oh yes, the thing about the Future Enforcer. He’s the second son of the king. His older brother will be the next king – and he will be his brother’s Enforcer. What I never understood is why was he not already considered the Enforcer? There’s never any mention of a current Enforcer, but he’s already going around finding Ordinaries to execute and torturing people in the dungeon. Even thinks about torturing as a way to blow off steam after the trials. I don’t understand why he’s going to hold this title – only after his father dies.

And speaking of torturing and killing – Okay, his horrible father is the one who forced him to learn to be a torturer and an executioner. Yes, that’s all very awful. But it’s kind of a great big romantic red flag? It seems like no matter what your body’s telling you and no matter how attractive you find him or how sorry for him you feel – it’s going to be fairly easy not to fall in love with him. (Never mind the big thing she only remembered at the end. Really?) So forgive me if I’m not all that excited about that relationship. And that’s disregarding the fact that I despise men who call women they are barely acquainted with “Darling.”

Another trope is dearly loved people being killed or nearly killed. More than one. And the one toward the end of the book, I never understood any justification for calling the person a “criminal.” Just to show what an awful person the king is?

Yes, the book is incredibly violent. The future Enforcer isn’t the only one who kills people. But they’re Bad People because they killed people our protagonists cared about.

So, yes, I had a bunch of issues with this book. But I finished it, and I enjoyed listening. I might even listen to more books in the series – there’s a novella, a sequel, and the third book of the trilogy coming out soon. Can I set aside all my reservations to find out what happens next? I’m not sure, but now at least I can look up this review and remember what happened in the first book.

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Violet Made of Thorns, by Gina Chen

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Violet Made of Thorns

by Gina Chen
read by Emily Woo Zeller

Listening Library, 2022. 11 hours, 5 minutes.
Review written December 11, 2022, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review

Violet has been a seer for the kingdom of Aveny since the day six years ago when she was ten and she used what she learned in a vision to save the young prince’s life.

Since then, she’s learned to please the king by lying about her visions and telling people what they want to hear and what the king wants them to hear. This pleases the king, but doesn’t please Prince Cyrus, and they’ve got a prickly relationship.

When the previous seer died, she prophesied a curse on Cyrus that can only be lifted with the help of his bride, but Cyrus has been slow about choosing a bride. The king wants him to hurry up about it.

And then Violet dreams that if Cyrus doesn’t die before the end of the summer, she will burn. And a way is given for her to kill him. But meanwhile, there’s a masked ball and a noble lady from the neighboring kingdom. The king wants Violet to convince Cyrus this lady is his true love.

But that lady is not what she seems. And on the night of the ball, beasts appear, and they go after Cyrus and Violet. Why does Cyrus protect Violet, endangering himself?

This book is full of plots and counterplots. Violet’s dreams are full of visions, but what do they mean and what should she do? There’s also sizzling sexual tension — in a relationship that doesn’t seem like a good choice for anybody, but seems impossible to stop.

It all barrels along with twists and turns to a bloody and surprising conclusion. We’ve got court intrigue, romantic tension, uncontrolled magic, confusing visions, fairy glamours, and the fate of nations in a novel that you won’t want to stop listening to.

actualgina.com

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Review of Celestial Monsters, by Aiden Thomas,

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Teen Fiction Review 0

Celestial Monsters

by Aiden Thomas
read by André Santana

Macmillan Young Listeners, 2024. 12 hours, 36 minutes.
Review written January 25, 2025, from a library eaudiobook

I finally got the sequel to The Sunbearer Trials read. It’s been a while, but it didn’t take too long to remember what happened at the end of the other book before those dread words “To Be Continued.” Let’s just say that their world is on the brink of the apocalypse, and Teo needs to save it, with the help of his best friend and the semidios boy he’s in love with.

I still enjoy the world of this story – a modern world, but it’s ruled by gods, which I think are mostly from Mayan mythology. There are quite a few transgender characters, one who switches to gender neutral pronouns in this book, which everyone is agreeable to – and it’s awfully refreshing.

The story itself is a bit too much like an older Rick Riordan book (older because more swearing) for me to get hugely invested. I have trouble with the mythology that requires human sacrifice – or any sacrifice – and I can’t quite understand how any world could get by a couple weeks without the sun. Ummm, how does that work, even if the sun is really the sun god? It’s best not to ask and try to immerse yourself in the story.

Other than that, there were lots of fights with the powerful “Celestials” released by the failure at the end of the last book. And an overarching plan to make things right that left a lot to chance. There were relationship things going on, and one of the viewpoint characters was the person who caused all the trouble, and they were beginning to get an inkling that was probably a bad idea. Our main character figuring out that sacrificing a child of the gods every ten years was a bad idea didn’t hit me too hard, I’m afraid, because, Duh? (I know, it’s what they grew up with. But I wasn’t super satisfied with what the alternative was, either.)

All that said, it’s a fantasy story with a main character who has wings and can talk to birds – which may not be as good in a fight as the powers the other demigods have, but it seems like it’s a lot more fun.

aiden-thomas.com

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Review of Buried Deep, by Naomi Novik

Fantasy, Fiction Review, Starred Review 0

Buried Deep

And Other Stories

by Naomi Novik

Del Rey, 2024. 428 pages.
Review written February 3, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review

I don’t read a lot of short story collections, because I have a hard time getting through them. It’s so easy to stop after finishing a story. But once I started this one, I knew I wanted to read every single story.

There are thirteen stories, of various lengths, with at least one from the worlds of Temeraire, the Scholomance, and Spinning Silver – that story was actually the original version of the book – but a different negotiation on the part of the miller’s daughter keeps it to story length.

My favorite was definitely the one in the world of Temeraire that retells Pride and Prejudice with Elizabeth Bennet the captain of a Longwing dragon. But this is not a proper occupation for a gentleman’s daughter. I love the way Naomi Novik works key scenes from Pride and Prejudice into that situation. And I love how Captain Bennet has learned to wield authority!

The title story is about the Minotaur and his sister Ariadne. The final story is in the world of an upcoming novel, currently titled Folly. I can’t wait!

Another favorite took place in the Scholomance after the events of the trilogy, so supposedly students are safer there – as long as their roommate doesn’t try to kill them.

Many of the stories are simply from some other fantasy world out of the mind of Naomi Novik – and she’s good at intriguing world-building. I loved the one about the woman who was a talented sculptor and who gets the commission to work with the magical clay – that tends to kill the sculptors who are permitted to work with it. (And there’s way more to it than that, which she skillfully communicates while telling you a fascinating story.)

This might be a good introduction to Naomi Novik’s magical writing, but it’s also a great way to keep her devoted fans patient while waiting for the next novel. Whichever you fall under, if you like fantasy at all, read this book!

naominovik.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of The Sunbearer Trials, by Aiden Thomas

Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Sunbearer Trials

by Aiden Thomas

Feiwel and Friends, 2022. 405 pages.
Review written October 28, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

Here’s another wonderful fantasy with a transgender character front and center. As with the outstanding book Cemetery Boys, there is again a gendered element to the magic. In Teo’s case, he’s the son of Quetzal, the goddess of birds, and has wings. Those wings are brown and dull-colored like a female bird, even though he’s been taking testosterone for about a year. So instead of binding his breasts, which he no longer needs to do after top surgery, he binds his wings to hide them.

But that isn’t central to the plot (and we know from the beautiful cover picture that’s going to work out). What the book is mainly about are the Sunbearer Trials.

As a prologue, we get the story of how the gods made humans and the land of Reina del Sol. There’s also a hierarchy of gods, which is explained, with the Gold gods next after Sol and the Jade gods after that. Then there are the Obsidian gods who are selfish and destructive and whom Sol bound in the heavens by sacrificing their life.

Every ten years, there must be a new sacrifice to renew that protection. And to choose the sacrifice, ten children of gods compete in the Sunbearer Trials. The winner becomes the Sunbearer, who goes to the cities of Reina del Sol with the renewed Sol Stone. The loser becomes the new sacrifice.

So it’s a little like the Hunger Games, except only one competitor dies.

With that mythical background, I was surprised to find the story is about a modern civilization with television and internet and posts going viral. But gods, dioses, live among humans. Teo is a semidios, one of the children of a god.

The Gold semidioses go to a special Academy to train to be heroes. With the abilities they inherit from their parents, it’s expected that they will spend their lives protecting humans, and they train for the Sunbearer Trials along the way. Teo’s mother Quetzal is a Jade goddess, so Jade has to go to public school with mortals. The only ability he inherited, besides his wings, is the ability to talk with birds.

Normally, all the competitors in the Sunbearer Trials are Gold semidioses. But this year, Teo is chosen, and so is thirteen-year-old Xio, the son of the god of Bad Luck. It doesn’t seem at all fair, since neither Teo nor Xio has been trained for the trials, so Teo is determined to help Xio not be the sacrifice, as well as trying to avoid it himself.

Warning: This book ends with the words To Be Continued. But the book itself tells about the Sunbearer Trials, which take place in five different cities of Reino Del Sol. So you learn much about that world along the way.

Teo isn’t the only queer character in the book, and nonbinary characters and people with two dads (for example) are considered completely normal, which is all lovely and refreshing. And one of the semidioses competing was Teo’s best friend when they were much younger, but ever since he started at the Academy, he treats Teo as if all that meant nothing.

This book reminded me very much of Rick Riordan books, since, after all, it involves half-gods. There’s also witty banter and smart aleck remarks between the characters. Which all is not necessarily my favorite kind of fantasy, but kids do like it, and I did love the inclusion of multiple genders as a matter of course. There were some details about the world that made me wonder, but it was so much fun hearing about the different gods’ cities, I didn’t let that bother me as much as I might have if I weren’t as invested in the story.

And yes, I will want to find out what happens next.

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