February 2026 Reading Round Up (Part 2)
Feb. 28th, 2026 10:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
metallic_sweetBooks I Finished
Wicked Onyx by Debbie Cassidy
Yet another entry into the burgeoning Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Magic School romantasy subgenre, Anamaya Onyx, the last member of the disgraced and cursed Onyx family, discovers that the way to potentially lift her curse and discover the truth about her family and herself is to attend Nightbridge Academy where everyone and everything is out to get her and everyone else. Despite the trope-filled set up, this book has a ton of heart and passion that comes out in the sincere enthusiasm of the narrative tone. Yes, it's dark academia, but that doesn't mean Ana can't have fun, and characters are dramatic and hammy in both heroic and villainous ways that got me laughing, cringing, and willing to read more.
This book is very well-paced with the only truly wasted bits being the bizarre introductory chapter that felt like a completely different book and the eye-rolling misadventures in the first half of the book where Ana tries to reject companionship and friendship that those who become her found family readily offer to her. The actual school aspects make little to no sense, and it feels like everyone is in an extended training simulation for the magical Hunger Games. In a book where there's everything from vampires to sea dragons to ghosts, this first book felt appropriately designed to be a set up for the next two with a bunch of entwined misadventures meant to build up various characters and their relationships before really jumping into the overarching mysteries in the second novel.
Very unusually, I really liked both of the potential love interests for Ana: Vitra, who is essentially her head of house and whom she feels instantly physically attracted to, and Drayven, a shapeshifter who shares much more in common with Ana than it first appears. Refreshingly, neither Vitra or Drayven seem to be jealous of each other, and they, as much as Ana, have their own reservations regarding entering into a relationship. That is really the only serious part of this novel, and it's effort well-spent on Cassidy's part, since it would be easy to argue that nothing really happens in this first book despite a plethora of action sequences and inter-personal drama.
Rating: ★★½☆☆
The Incandescent by Emily Tesh
Told from the POV of Saffy Walden, a highly accomplished magician who is the Director of Magic at the prestigious Chetwood School, this book was a breath of fresh air in the dark academia/magic school fantasy subgenre as it primarily focuses on the staff of Chetwood and the trials and tribulations of academic employment and life. Demons are the primary danger in this world, and Walden, one of the foremost experts, specialises in teaching upper level Invocation, which deals with the summoning of demons. The tone of this book is less what the publisher references and more similar to the first half of The Magicians and the Scholomance trilogy, except it's told from the educator's POV.
I absolutely loved the first quarter of this. The school felt like a school; the adults were appropriately wrapped up in the administrative morass of running the school as well as teaching and doing their own research; and, the teenagers, the main students featured, acted and reacted like teens would. Magic being tied to arrays and specific skills rather than the usual wands and hand gestures was pretty cool, and I really enjoyed that there was time spent in class learning about magic, safety, and ethics. The cast felt diverse and modern and reminded me a lot of actual academia, which most books in this subgenre generally don't. I really liked the dynamic and reluctant attraction between Walden and the Chief Marshal, Laura Kenning, too.
Unfortunately, the pacing and the strong ground of this book sharply tapers off after the fateful battle between Walden, Kenning, and a powerful demon called Old Faithful. A second love interest for Walden is introduced, and Kenning is effectively off-screened for the majority of the novel as Walden gets further and further wrapped up in what essentially amounts to administrative politics and getting too deep inside of her own head. I felt like Tesh got really bogged down in her own worldbuilding after a certain point and fell back on tried and true tropes to hurry the novel to its conclusion, which felt terribly rushed.
Rating: ★★½☆☆
Agnes Aubert's Mystical Cat Shelter by Heather Fawcett
A cosy historical romantasy set in a magical, vaguely 1920s Montréal, Agnes is on the hunt for a new home for her charity, a cat shelter, after her previous shopfront was blown up by marauding magicians. Agnes is a plucky, emotionally intelligent main character who is easy to root for as she navigates the trials and tribulations of trying to run a charity while dealing with the people around her, including her equally high-energy sister, a sticky-fingered employee, and an ever-increasing inventory of cats. Widowed following the near magical apocalypse that occurred two years prior, Agnes has her work cut out for her even before the mysterious magician Havelock appears in her life.
This book draws heavily from Howl's Moving Castle and evokes shades, positive and negative, of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Agnes and Havelock are clearly cut from the same cloth as Sophie and Howl, and they're endearing and easy to root for as a couple even before they clock that they're attracted to each other. The magic system isn't particularly clear in this book as all magic arises from those who can enter Ravenwood, which is like another magical dimension, and Agnes isn't able to do that. The reader is essentially along for the ride that Agnes herself is experiencing, which makes everything feel low stakes and almost soothing.
At the end of the day, this is a cosy romantasy, which isn't really my cup of tea. I think that folks who enjoy this subgenre will really like this book, probably a star or two higher than my own rating. It has danger and action but never too much of either, but Fawcett avoids straying into triteness and keeps the story grounded with the cats, variety of events, and basic worldbuilding. Agnes, Havelock, and the cats are endearing characters, who Fawcett may return to in the future if the ending is any indication, although the other human characters are ultimately forgettable.
Rating: ★★★☆☆
The Manor of Dreams by Christina Li
A Chinese American gothic horror novel in which Vivian Yin, the first Chinese actress to win an Oscar, dies and her children are shocked to learn she has willed her Southern California estate to another family altogether. The two families dig in their heels in the manor, which becomes increasingly hostile over the course of a week. Meanwhile, the intricate ties between the two families are uncovered along with long buried secrets, including murders and wicked ambitions spanning two centuries. Drawing heavily from The Dream of the Red Chamber and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, this is a literary family drama told from far too many POVs with substantial but sometimes confusing horror elements.
This book shines in Vivian's POV chapters, which are much more grounded and constructed like a third-person memoir. A composite of multiple Chinese actresses in history, her ill-fated love story with her actor-producer husband, a descendant of a railroad robber baron, serves as the rising action to the series of unfortunate events that befall her family. Arguably, this novel is about compounded generational trauma with the children of immigrants suffering the sins of their parents rooted in the evils that underpin the American dream.
That said, Li tries to do too much. The 2024 portions with their many POVs gets confusing as they shift so quickly, and I imagine it's more confusing for readers who aren't familiar with the intricate naming conventions in Chinese languages, let alone Chinese cultural norms and class issues. There's too much going on in the manor and its gardens, and there's very little time for the reader to digest information before something new is thrown at them. I didn't feel like I really believed anything that was happening after a while, and the climax was over the top and more fanciful than scary. I finished reading unsure how I felt about the book because I felt like it was two separate versions of the same story haphazardly stitched together.
Rating: ★★½☆☆
Anji Kills a King by Evan Leikam
Anji, a palace laundress, kills a much hated king on a chance and attempts to flee, setting into play a series of events as legendary mercenaries, most notably a woman called the Hawk, attempt to claim the massive bounty on her head. Anji herself is full of fight and very little sense, and she desperately wants to survive, which puts her at odds with her own ideals and innate kindness. The heart of the story lies in Anji's past and how it entwines with the Hawk herself, slowly revealed over the course of the fast-paced, action-filled journey filled with monsters of the human and inhumane.
This reads like a single-player DnD campaign and told from a tight limited third person POV. Despite the brisk pacing, the first half has long moments that drag as Anji and the Hawk move from one location to the next with often very little explanation. Keeping the interactions so securely locked with two characters for such a substantial amount of the novel either allows the reader to become attached to them or fosters annoyance and boredom, and Leikam manages to do both. Hawk's absolute commitment to not communicating even essential information and Anji's stubborn ability to say and do the wrong thing at the wrong time is extremely frustrating after a while.
The second half is much better than the first as we're finally introduced to more characters that aren't off-screened in a couple chapters, and we get to learn more about the world and the tyrannical religious system. I came to really enjoyed how this is very much a story about women living and dying in their own ways, and equally women making their own mistakes on all levels: drug use, murder, questionably romantic partners, etc. The climax of this book is well worthwhile, although the journey to get there is a real trek, and it does set up well for the next book. Overall, this is a solid debut and fits well into the grimdark subgenre, although I'm not sure exactly how the next book will shape up.
Rating: ★★★☆☆
The Starlight Heir by Amalie Howard
Every now and again I read a book that makes me question whether or not I have common sense. I was vaguely interested in the set up of this: Suraya Saab is a blacksmith with hidden magical talent who also works in her family's tavern, and she receives a surprise invitation to compete alongside other selected young women for the hand of the crown prince. Suraya has always dreamed of seeing the palace and accepts the invitation because, of course, she lives in an absolute and tyrannical monarchy where her refusal would be much worse than her acceptance. Once in the capital, she meets Roshan, who is quickly revealed to be the bastard son of the king and his former wife, and everything quickly goes off the rails.
I'm not sure if Howard knew what she wanted to do with this book. I ended up being reminded of Callie Hart's Quicksilver because of the desert setting, main character who is a skilled blacksmith and OP AF, mystical portal travel, and fantastic racism tied to misunderstanding magical powers, and finding Starlight Heir greatly lacking. The narrative is all over the place with characters throwing away personality traits as needed, and the magic system making very little sense as new facets are added nearly every other page. Suraya either has absolutely no control over her powers, or she's a miracle worker, and she appreciates very little of anything that happens to her until people get hurt. The whole book is action first, empathy later.
At the end of the day, this felt like a haphazard foray of an established romance author into fantasy but without the restraint or raw passion as some others who have made the jump. It's not nearly as erroneous as Deveraux's attempt because it had it moments where it was fun, and, while I wasn't moved by anything, I did like Roshan and Suraya together, so long as they weren't bantering, which got excruciatingly old after a while. I have to conclude that, while I was the audience of some of the tropes in this book, I wasn't the audience for its vision and execution.
Rating: ★☆☆☆☆
Books I Didn't Finish
The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell
This started out so well: Elsie, a recently widowed Victorian woman, moves with her spinster sister-in-law to an English countryside manor her late husband was in the process of restoring ahead of the birth of their first child. Meanwhile, we have flash forwards to about a year later of Elsie, recovering in a sanatorium and badly burned from a fire that destroyed the manor and killed four people. Unfortunately, this book is decidedly slow moving with too many parts at play: the creepy dolls that are the silent companions; an heirloom diamond necklace; an evil, changeable manor; etc. I got over halfway through and realised I wasn't interested in learning the mysteries nor Elsie's ultimate fate.
Order of Swans by Jude Deveraux
I think this is the case of Deveraux, a seasoned romance author, seeing a bunch of recent trends in romance and romantasy and saying, "I can do that," without understanding where certain sci-fi and fantasy tropes come from and how they function. There is far too much going on—aliens, secret identities, dragons, Swan Lake elements, etc—and the characters talk literally everything that is happening through except for what needs to stay secret for the book to have a semblance of a plot. It's unbelievable and honestly laughable.
Women's Hotel by Daniel M. Lavery
I really liked the concept of this novel, following the lives of single women in 1960s New York City living in a turn of the last century boarding house. This is unrepentant slice of life, though, and it gets dull quickly with most of the characters coming across as self-absorbed and the narrative style needlessly dense. I'm not sure who the audience of this book is aside from intensely navel-gazing New Yorker readers.
Wicked Onyx by Debbie Cassidy
First book in a trilogy
Yet another entry into the burgeoning Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Magic School romantasy subgenre, Anamaya Onyx, the last member of the disgraced and cursed Onyx family, discovers that the way to potentially lift her curse and discover the truth about her family and herself is to attend Nightbridge Academy where everyone and everything is out to get her and everyone else. Despite the trope-filled set up, this book has a ton of heart and passion that comes out in the sincere enthusiasm of the narrative tone. Yes, it's dark academia, but that doesn't mean Ana can't have fun, and characters are dramatic and hammy in both heroic and villainous ways that got me laughing, cringing, and willing to read more.
This book is very well-paced with the only truly wasted bits being the bizarre introductory chapter that felt like a completely different book and the eye-rolling misadventures in the first half of the book where Ana tries to reject companionship and friendship that those who become her found family readily offer to her. The actual school aspects make little to no sense, and it feels like everyone is in an extended training simulation for the magical Hunger Games. In a book where there's everything from vampires to sea dragons to ghosts, this first book felt appropriately designed to be a set up for the next two with a bunch of entwined misadventures meant to build up various characters and their relationships before really jumping into the overarching mysteries in the second novel.
Very unusually, I really liked both of the potential love interests for Ana: Vitra, who is essentially her head of house and whom she feels instantly physically attracted to, and Drayven, a shapeshifter who shares much more in common with Ana than it first appears. Refreshingly, neither Vitra or Drayven seem to be jealous of each other, and they, as much as Ana, have their own reservations regarding entering into a relationship. That is really the only serious part of this novel, and it's effort well-spent on Cassidy's part, since it would be easy to argue that nothing really happens in this first book despite a plethora of action sequences and inter-personal drama.
Rating: ★★½☆☆
The Incandescent by Emily Tesh
Told from the POV of Saffy Walden, a highly accomplished magician who is the Director of Magic at the prestigious Chetwood School, this book was a breath of fresh air in the dark academia/magic school fantasy subgenre as it primarily focuses on the staff of Chetwood and the trials and tribulations of academic employment and life. Demons are the primary danger in this world, and Walden, one of the foremost experts, specialises in teaching upper level Invocation, which deals with the summoning of demons. The tone of this book is less what the publisher references and more similar to the first half of The Magicians and the Scholomance trilogy, except it's told from the educator's POV.
I absolutely loved the first quarter of this. The school felt like a school; the adults were appropriately wrapped up in the administrative morass of running the school as well as teaching and doing their own research; and, the teenagers, the main students featured, acted and reacted like teens would. Magic being tied to arrays and specific skills rather than the usual wands and hand gestures was pretty cool, and I really enjoyed that there was time spent in class learning about magic, safety, and ethics. The cast felt diverse and modern and reminded me a lot of actual academia, which most books in this subgenre generally don't. I really liked the dynamic and reluctant attraction between Walden and the Chief Marshal, Laura Kenning, too.
Unfortunately, the pacing and the strong ground of this book sharply tapers off after the fateful battle between Walden, Kenning, and a powerful demon called Old Faithful. A second love interest for Walden is introduced, and Kenning is effectively off-screened for the majority of the novel as Walden gets further and further wrapped up in what essentially amounts to administrative politics and getting too deep inside of her own head. I felt like Tesh got really bogged down in her own worldbuilding after a certain point and fell back on tried and true tropes to hurry the novel to its conclusion, which felt terribly rushed.
Rating: ★★½☆☆
Agnes Aubert's Mystical Cat Shelter by Heather Fawcett
A cosy historical romantasy set in a magical, vaguely 1920s Montréal, Agnes is on the hunt for a new home for her charity, a cat shelter, after her previous shopfront was blown up by marauding magicians. Agnes is a plucky, emotionally intelligent main character who is easy to root for as she navigates the trials and tribulations of trying to run a charity while dealing with the people around her, including her equally high-energy sister, a sticky-fingered employee, and an ever-increasing inventory of cats. Widowed following the near magical apocalypse that occurred two years prior, Agnes has her work cut out for her even before the mysterious magician Havelock appears in her life.
This book draws heavily from Howl's Moving Castle and evokes shades, positive and negative, of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Agnes and Havelock are clearly cut from the same cloth as Sophie and Howl, and they're endearing and easy to root for as a couple even before they clock that they're attracted to each other. The magic system isn't particularly clear in this book as all magic arises from those who can enter Ravenwood, which is like another magical dimension, and Agnes isn't able to do that. The reader is essentially along for the ride that Agnes herself is experiencing, which makes everything feel low stakes and almost soothing.
At the end of the day, this is a cosy romantasy, which isn't really my cup of tea. I think that folks who enjoy this subgenre will really like this book, probably a star or two higher than my own rating. It has danger and action but never too much of either, but Fawcett avoids straying into triteness and keeps the story grounded with the cats, variety of events, and basic worldbuilding. Agnes, Havelock, and the cats are endearing characters, who Fawcett may return to in the future if the ending is any indication, although the other human characters are ultimately forgettable.
Rating: ★★★☆☆
The Manor of Dreams by Christina Li
A Chinese American gothic horror novel in which Vivian Yin, the first Chinese actress to win an Oscar, dies and her children are shocked to learn she has willed her Southern California estate to another family altogether. The two families dig in their heels in the manor, which becomes increasingly hostile over the course of a week. Meanwhile, the intricate ties between the two families are uncovered along with long buried secrets, including murders and wicked ambitions spanning two centuries. Drawing heavily from The Dream of the Red Chamber and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, this is a literary family drama told from far too many POVs with substantial but sometimes confusing horror elements.
This book shines in Vivian's POV chapters, which are much more grounded and constructed like a third-person memoir. A composite of multiple Chinese actresses in history, her ill-fated love story with her actor-producer husband, a descendant of a railroad robber baron, serves as the rising action to the series of unfortunate events that befall her family. Arguably, this novel is about compounded generational trauma with the children of immigrants suffering the sins of their parents rooted in the evils that underpin the American dream.
That said, Li tries to do too much. The 2024 portions with their many POVs gets confusing as they shift so quickly, and I imagine it's more confusing for readers who aren't familiar with the intricate naming conventions in Chinese languages, let alone Chinese cultural norms and class issues. There's too much going on in the manor and its gardens, and there's very little time for the reader to digest information before something new is thrown at them. I didn't feel like I really believed anything that was happening after a while, and the climax was over the top and more fanciful than scary. I finished reading unsure how I felt about the book because I felt like it was two separate versions of the same story haphazardly stitched together.
Rating: ★★½☆☆
Anji Kills a King by Evan Leikam
First book in a series
Anji, a palace laundress, kills a much hated king on a chance and attempts to flee, setting into play a series of events as legendary mercenaries, most notably a woman called the Hawk, attempt to claim the massive bounty on her head. Anji herself is full of fight and very little sense, and she desperately wants to survive, which puts her at odds with her own ideals and innate kindness. The heart of the story lies in Anji's past and how it entwines with the Hawk herself, slowly revealed over the course of the fast-paced, action-filled journey filled with monsters of the human and inhumane.
This reads like a single-player DnD campaign and told from a tight limited third person POV. Despite the brisk pacing, the first half has long moments that drag as Anji and the Hawk move from one location to the next with often very little explanation. Keeping the interactions so securely locked with two characters for such a substantial amount of the novel either allows the reader to become attached to them or fosters annoyance and boredom, and Leikam manages to do both. Hawk's absolute commitment to not communicating even essential information and Anji's stubborn ability to say and do the wrong thing at the wrong time is extremely frustrating after a while.
The second half is much better than the first as we're finally introduced to more characters that aren't off-screened in a couple chapters, and we get to learn more about the world and the tyrannical religious system. I came to really enjoyed how this is very much a story about women living and dying in their own ways, and equally women making their own mistakes on all levels: drug use, murder, questionably romantic partners, etc. The climax of this book is well worthwhile, although the journey to get there is a real trek, and it does set up well for the next book. Overall, this is a solid debut and fits well into the grimdark subgenre, although I'm not sure exactly how the next book will shape up.
Rating: ★★★☆☆
The Starlight Heir by Amalie Howard
First book in a duology
Every now and again I read a book that makes me question whether or not I have common sense. I was vaguely interested in the set up of this: Suraya Saab is a blacksmith with hidden magical talent who also works in her family's tavern, and she receives a surprise invitation to compete alongside other selected young women for the hand of the crown prince. Suraya has always dreamed of seeing the palace and accepts the invitation because, of course, she lives in an absolute and tyrannical monarchy where her refusal would be much worse than her acceptance. Once in the capital, she meets Roshan, who is quickly revealed to be the bastard son of the king and his former wife, and everything quickly goes off the rails.
I'm not sure if Howard knew what she wanted to do with this book. I ended up being reminded of Callie Hart's Quicksilver because of the desert setting, main character who is a skilled blacksmith and OP AF, mystical portal travel, and fantastic racism tied to misunderstanding magical powers, and finding Starlight Heir greatly lacking. The narrative is all over the place with characters throwing away personality traits as needed, and the magic system making very little sense as new facets are added nearly every other page. Suraya either has absolutely no control over her powers, or she's a miracle worker, and she appreciates very little of anything that happens to her until people get hurt. The whole book is action first, empathy later.
At the end of the day, this felt like a haphazard foray of an established romance author into fantasy but without the restraint or raw passion as some others who have made the jump. It's not nearly as erroneous as Deveraux's attempt because it had it moments where it was fun, and, while I wasn't moved by anything, I did like Roshan and Suraya together, so long as they weren't bantering, which got excruciatingly old after a while. I have to conclude that, while I was the audience of some of the tropes in this book, I wasn't the audience for its vision and execution.
Rating: ★☆☆☆☆
Books I Didn't Finish
The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell
This started out so well: Elsie, a recently widowed Victorian woman, moves with her spinster sister-in-law to an English countryside manor her late husband was in the process of restoring ahead of the birth of their first child. Meanwhile, we have flash forwards to about a year later of Elsie, recovering in a sanatorium and badly burned from a fire that destroyed the manor and killed four people. Unfortunately, this book is decidedly slow moving with too many parts at play: the creepy dolls that are the silent companions; an heirloom diamond necklace; an evil, changeable manor; etc. I got over halfway through and realised I wasn't interested in learning the mysteries nor Elsie's ultimate fate.
Order of Swans by Jude Deveraux
First in a trilogy
I think this is the case of Deveraux, a seasoned romance author, seeing a bunch of recent trends in romance and romantasy and saying, "I can do that," without understanding where certain sci-fi and fantasy tropes come from and how they function. There is far too much going on—aliens, secret identities, dragons, Swan Lake elements, etc—and the characters talk literally everything that is happening through except for what needs to stay secret for the book to have a semblance of a plot. It's unbelievable and honestly laughable.
Women's Hotel by Daniel M. Lavery
I really liked the concept of this novel, following the lives of single women in 1960s New York City living in a turn of the last century boarding house. This is unrepentant slice of life, though, and it gets dull quickly with most of the characters coming across as self-absorbed and the narrative style needlessly dense. I'm not sure who the audience of this book is aside from intensely navel-gazing New Yorker readers.
