Grady Hendrix has done it again. A couple of years ago, I fell hard for Horrorstör, a horror tale set in an IKEA-like retail store, and I’ve been waiting anxiously for his follow-up novel ever since. My Best Friend’s Exorcism has much of the same type of horror/humor mash-up that I loved in Horrorstör, with the addition of a heartwarming story about a life-long friendship. Even better, for those of us who fondly remember the 80s, Hendrix takes us back in time to the era of cassette tapes, big hair, the AIDS scare and many more iconic 80s moments.  But don’t let that fool you. This is a horror story with some very creepy and unsettling moments. Hendrix has toned down the over-the-top crazy horror in his first book and given us a much subtler terror this time around, the kind that ratchets up slowly until the suspense is nearly killing you. The story is set in 1988 and mostly takes place at a small private high school in Charleston, SC. Abby and her three closest friends—Gretchen, Margaret and Glee—are sophomores at Albemarle Academy, and life is pretty much status quo. Their lives are full of school work, boys, the latest…

What an odd and magical story this was! I’ve only read one other Seanan McGuire story, but from what I understand, she seems to be one of those authors who reinvents herself with each story she writes. Every Heart a Doorway can be read on several levels, and only writers with great skill are able to pull that off successfully, in my opinion. McGuire does so brilliantly, giving us a magical yet menacing tale of a group of teens who have been sent to a special school in order to deal with a very unusual loss, a tale that quickly becomes a murder mystery. But dig deeper and this story is about growing up and leaving childhood behind. For such a short novella, McGuire gives her readers everything they could want: a fascinating premise for a story, a tantalizing mystery, and even hard-hitting emotional content. The story revolves around Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children, a school where children and teens who have found a secret doorway to another world and then been cast out of that world can come to be rehabilitated. Each student has spent time—often years—in one of many worlds, and all of them are trying to…

Today we are happy to welcome Mishell Baker, author of Borderline. In case you missed our review of her book, it received 5 full stars! Definitely worth checking out.   Welcome to the Speculative Herald, Mishell! Thank you for answering some of my questions.   For those who may be unfamiliar with the story, can you give us a brief synopsis ofBorderline? A double amputee with borderline personality disorder gets recruited to a secret organization policing traffic between our world and a parallel magical one. Her first assignment is to find a missing fey nobleman who has vanished somewhere in Los Angeles. As she follows the trail of clues she begins to uncover a conspiracy that could lead to a war between the worlds.   Borderlineis a combination of several unique elements: the film industry, the realm of the fey, characters with mental illnesses, and more. How did you decide to bring all these elements together in a story? They say “write what you know,” especially with a first book, and so it began with my attempt to write about the things most familiar to me: Los Angeles, mental health, the entertainment industry. But I can’t seem to write any story…

I’ve been salivating over this amazing cover for months now, and I was so excited to be able to read Mishell Baker’s debut. I thought I was going to get one type of story, but ultimately Borderline blew me away with its odd—but somehow workable—combination of elements. First, the setting is Los Angeles, Baker’s hometown, and sunny Tinseltown turns out to be the perfect setting. The story revolves around a famous film director whose “muse” has gone missing. It turns out that every creative person on Earth has a muse from a parallel world called Arcadia, where the Seelie and Unseelie Courts are real, and the fey are not just the stuff of movies. And then there is Millie. Millie is definitely a new favorite character, and despite her rough edges I dare you not to fall in love with her. Baker has given her a double whammy of disabilities. First, she has borderline personality disorder (which I didn’t know anything about before I read this book) and she’s been institutionalized for the past six months after a suicide attempt, during which she lost both her legs. So not only is she mentally ill, but she’s a double amputee as…

It wasn’t until I had finished reading The Ballad of Black Tom that I found out it was based on an H.P. Lovecraft short story called The Horror at Red Hook and that several of the characters have the same names. This would have been more interesting to me had I actually read Lovecraft’s story first, but I did enjoy going back afterwards and looking up the details (thank God for Wikipedia!). What’s much more interesting about LaValle’s take on it is that he’s turned Lovecraft’s famous xenophobia on its head and written a story about one man’s experiences with racism in 1920s New York City. I mean, think about it: an African-American author, writing a story that deals with racism, based on a story by a famous racist. It sounds crazy, but LaValle pulls it off, although I have to say I was more interested in the mechanics of what he was trying to do, rather than the story itself, which to me lacked cohesion. The Lovecraft elements are subtle, and unless you’re familiar with the story it’s based upon, you may not notice them at all until the end. What did scream “Lovecraft” to me, however, was the unsettling feeling that runs…

I’ve heard so many wonderful things about Will McIntosh’s adult novels (Love Minus Eighty and Defenders) but this is the first book of his I’ve read. In his YA debut, McIntosh has come up with a truly awesome idea and built an exciting and engaging story around it, with well-drawn and sympathetic characters. Much of the story revolves around the mystery of the marble-sized spheres that suddenly appeared all over the world, hidden in nooks and crannies, and when the author finally reveals their purpose, well, get ready to have your mind blown! I think the word “outrageous” would not be out-of-place when describing this story, and I mean outrageous in the best possible way. The story takes place five years after the spheres appeared, and in that time a booming economy has grown around them. Different colored spheres will give the lucky owner special abilities when they “burn” two of the same color by holding them up to their temples. For example, Rose gives you the ability to hold your breath, while Lemon Yellow will make you grow an inch. There are literally dozens of colors and special abilities, and you can either find spheres “in the wild” (spheres…

Beware: spoilers await all ye who have not read A Darker Shade of Magic! It’s been a year since I read A Darker Shade of Magic, but I easily fell right back into Schwab’s magical but dangerous world, where three different Londons exist one on top of the other—Grey, White and Red—and only a few people are able to move among them. Well, I guess you could say there are four Londons, but Black London’s doors were closed forever after the magic there spun out of control, and now Black London is nothing but ruins, or maybe even a myth. A Gathering of Shadows was just as good, if not better, than the first book, which is happy news for fans who fear the “sophomore slump” syndrome that often inflicts fantasy series. Not only does the story keep building—I’m not sure exactly where Schwab is headed, but I can tell she knows, and it feels as if events are careening toward an inexorable finish line—but we get more back story on the characters that we grew to love: Lila, Kell, and Rhy in particular. We also get to meet a new character or two, my very favorite being Alucard Emery….

The moment I saw the cover for this book, I knew I had to read it. This is going to be one of my favorite covers of the year, no doubt. And even better, the story inside is just as magical and exciting. Lee Kelly brings something new to the table in the urban fantasy genre, making her an author to keep an eye on. I loved the blend of magic, action and romance, and I was swept away with Kelly’s irresistible world-building. Set in an alternate history 1920s, A Criminal Magic takes place in a United States where the use of magic has become illegal. Just like speakeasies in the Prohibition era, sorcerers who still wish to perform magic must do so undercover, in underground establishments called “shine rooms.” There, they take to the stage and perform for small audiences, with the highlight of the performance being the creation of “shine,” a magical drink created from water that provides a drug-like euphoria and high. But there’s a catch to shine—in fact, there’s a big catch to all types of magic—true magic only lasts one day, after which it disappears or turns back into water, in the case of shine….

Sometimes all your expectations go flying out the window when you actually sit down to read a book, and my experience with All the Birds in the Sky was just like that. This book isn’t so much about plot as it is about the relationships between the characters and how that relationship is constantly changing. I’m not sure everyone will love this book as much as I did, because it’s different from every other SFF book out there, and “different” is often misunderstood. But Anders’ fascinating ideas and lovable characters have earned her a place on my “must read” list. This is also a thoughtful story that explores themes such as preserving life on Earth no matter what the cost, nature versus technology, and the delicate balance of friendship. Throw in the fact that this was just so much fun to read, and I came to care about Patricia and Laurence so much that I was fully invested in how things would turn out for them. Patricia and Laurence meet in middle school, a bad time for both of them, as they are bullied terribly by their peers. They also have less than ideal home lives, but in different ways….

I was immediately drawn to this novella by the cover: a beautiful and fierce-looking woman in the middle of a stormy sea. What was happening to her? It is book covers like this that make me want to read a book, and I dove in, hoping to find adventure, danger and an answer to my question. And I was not disappointed. The Drowning Eyes packs a lot of story into such a small page count, and introduces readers to some very unique characters. Foster takes the idea of a group of women who can control the wind and bring forth storms through magic, and tells the story of a girl who has been given a difficult task to complete before she is considered a full-fledged “Windspeaker.” Tazir is the captain of the Giggling Goat, and along with her small crew, she sails among the Tahiri Islands, transporting travelers from island to island, assuring them safe passage through choppy waves and storm-prone skies. As they wait in a port, looking for their next customer, they are approached by a young girl named Shina, who offers them a huge amount of money to get to a distant island. She says her parents…