February 2026 Reading Round Up (Part 1)
Feb. 12th, 2026 02:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
metallic_sweetBooks I Finished
The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
A combination witch and ghost story told through three perspectives in three different time periods: Minerva, a graduate student research the life and work of Beatrice Tremblay in 1998; Alba, Minerva's great-grandmother who encountered witches and monsters in her youth in 1908; and, Beatrice, who based her horror novel, The Vanishing, on the mysterious disappearance in 1934 of her roommate and love interest, Virginia. I really liked how all three POVs are structured differently, especially Beatrice's sections, which are written as the autobiographical manuscript that Minerva is studying. Alba and Minerva's POVs are a more traditional third-person limited in two different settings that build tension even as events mirror each other. I did find that both had points where they dragged in comparison to Beatrice's chapters, especially in the first quarter of the book, but everything picks up onwards from there.
I really enjoyed how this is a very character driven novel, but it had great settings and a solid feeling of different time periods, which is very helpful as Minerva and Beatrice's chapters have the same setting. As a character, I liked Alba the best because her POV really captures the feeling of a young woman on the cusp of adulthood and maturity, and she has spunk and drive with her heart pulled between family and her own desires. Some people will find her love triangle divisive, but it fits perfectly into the gothic genre. All three characters have distinct motivators that are sufficiently different from each other: Minerva is driven by the naturally obsessive nature of academic ambition; Beatrice is trapped in hopeless love and social expectations; and Alba is faced with danger from within her own family.
That being said, there's some points that are clearly "for the vibes" rather than additive to the plot. Minerva being nearly crushed in the library stacks and the whole character of Conrad felt unnecessary, and the mirroring of events sometimes came off as trite, like finding a dead rat to signal an escalation in the witch's hold on the victim. I also wasn't a fan of the climax having a convenient dues ex machina, although I did like the final, foreseeable villain reveal. Also, while this isn't a romance, it's pretty obvious that Hideo is interested in Minerva as more than a friend and colleague, but it's hard to see if it'll go anywhere despite how much he does for her, which feels kind of bad.
Rating: ★★★½☆
Upon a Starlit Tide by Kell Woods
This is a fun book that combines the fairy tales of A Little Mermaid and Cinderella and is set primarily in the walled city of Saint-Malo, Brittany. Lucinde, the third and adopted daughter of the powerful Léon shipping family, commonly called 'Luce', saves a man caught in the shallows after a shipwreck. The man turns out to be Morgan de Chatelaine, the youngest son of a similarly powerful shipping family, and his survival sets into motion events that upend Luce's idyllic life, forcing her to confront her feelings regarding Samuel, friend and English smuggler, and face her shrouded past. I found the combination of elements from both fairy tales to be refreshing and fun with the major tropes from each, from escaping the grand ball at midnight to Luce's misshapen and painful feet, interwoven throughout the story.
Of particular pleasure is how the story describes and utilises the unique environment of Saint-Malo. Much of the story's rising action takes place on ships and small boats and in the interconnected sea cave system, which lends an otherworldly and sometimes eerie feel the narrative. I really liked how the fae are present for most of the story, but they're also largely mysterious to humans as the two have grown more and more apart from each other as humans have grown in population and reshaped the land to their needs. The second half of the story, in which the fae do play a much larger part, is unfortunately messier in its pacing and has too many convenient reveals, which made me wonder if this book might have benefited from being a duology to fully flesh out the magical world.
Overall, the second half of the book feels chaotic in comparison to the grounded, atmospheric first half, and many of the characters, especially Morgan, become flatter to accommodate the fast-moving plot and Luce's rapid character growth. It's still enjoyable, particularly the dissection of Luce's relationship with her father, but much of the impact of the story is lost with the abrupt and unsatisfactory ending. I think this a classic example of having a lot of potential but trying to do too much all at once.
Rating: ★★★☆☆
The Possession of Alba Díaz by Isabel Cañas
I love a good ol' demonic possession! This book is a great romp through the demonic possession horror subgenre mixed with modern folklore elements to add to the 1765 Mexico setting. The story focuses on the possession of Alba, the adopted daughter of the wealthy Díaz family, after she tries to follow the wails of a baby in a silver mine. Along with Elías, the mysterious convict and alchemist, Bartholomé, the zealous priest and childhood friend, and Carlos, Alba's fiancé and cousin of Elías, Alba's possession upends their lives and challenges current power structures and ideals of identity and female agency. The narrative is well-paced and is successfully eerie, and the demonic possession is front and center with great tension built up to the finale.
I loved Alba's character. She starts off the story newly engaged to Carlos, not for love but for convenience; Alba wants to be able to live her own life and Carlos is willing to provide that for her. The plague drives Alba and Carlos's families to take refuge in a small silver mining community, which is also where Alba was found orphaned as an infant. Alba is resourceful, intelligent, and willing to face her own prejudices and demons, literal and emotional, to gain control over her life and her love for Elías, and this makes the action of the finale satisfying with its blend of revenge and retribution.
The one thing I found really didn't work was the penultimate section where Elías and Alba attempt to escape the Inquisition. This section is choppy and frenetic in a way the rest of the novel isn't; it is meant to set up the final major twist but manages to be more confusing than anything else. There is also an awkward POV shift at the end that felt unedited and abrupt, although I understand it was trying to tie back to the opening of the novel. While I liked the content of the ending, it was awkwardly executed.
Rating: ★★★★☆
8114 by Joshua Hill
This book captures B horror flick vibes with about the same amount of substance. Paul, a disgraced true crime podcaster, comes back to his hometown only to discover that Kyle, one of his best friends from his youth, has killed himself in John's childhood home, 8114. As any desperate man on the brink of career collapse would do, he immediately begins a new true crime podcast to investigate Kyle's supposed suicide. Taking place in a small, close knit town very similar to the author's own, Paul's life continues to unravel as he finds himself haunted by Kyle, various malevolent supernatural forces, and, ultimately, himself.
Characters aside from John are flat, serving one purpose: to demonstrate to Paul how he himself is part of the problem, whether it be how he preys on society's obsession with the criminal and macabre or how he fundamentally cannot take responsibility for his own actions. I really liked how the interviews Paul put his friends and community members up to play a major, on-screen part to the story, although the rest of the narrative suffers from abrupt transitions, occasionally boring and often unbelievable conversations, and, by the last fourth of the book, way too much going on. Still, I did read the whole book because it's short and I do enjoy a B horror flick in the way that most people enjoy a candy bar: in the moment, it's what you want, but it gives you a headache afterwards.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
The Once and Future Queen by Paula Lafferty
This book started off with a lot of promise: a modern woman named Vera, living in Glastonbury and helping to run her family's inn, discovers that she's in fact Guinevere, sent to the future to recover from a terrible fate in Arthurian Britain. The set up is well-done, especially for readers familiar with time portal fantasy: Vera makes the choice to go back in time with Merlin to save the future, and there is sufficient mystery to how she'll adapt in the past and if she'll ever recover her memories as Guinevere. Unfortunately, that's where things immediately begin to fall apart—and not in a positive way for the narrative.
Remember BBC Merlin? The characters are structured similarly but, outside of Lancelot and Gawain, lacks their charm. Arthur begins the book as cold and standoffish, and his thawing is awkwardly done, and Vera and Arthur oscillate viciously between harmonious love and attraction and blow up fights that feel increasingly manufactured to add unnecessary tension. This is a trend with most other characters in the novel with every plot-important character going through a mini-arc of 'are they good or are they bad?' with Merlin as a particularly notable example. It's all effectively word count padding and gets to be exhausting.
Despite all of this, I do think this first book in a trilogy stuck the landing for the most part with the ending, spending more time with the mages and how magic works and finally revealing some of the mystery around Lancelot and Gawain. I'm more interested in the side characters and the mystery with Vivianne, this universe's Morgana, than with Vera and Arthur, which is certainly a detractor from picking up the next book unless it turns out there are alternating POVs as the bonus chapter seems to imply as a possibility.
Rating: ★½☆☆☆
Brimstone by Callie Hart
I feel like I cracked the code to the vast majority of romantasy: if you don't take it seriously, it's a lot of fun. Despite how much is going on in this book and seemingly very little editorial oversight, I enjoyed this, although not as much as Quicksilver, but that mostly has to do with how much I do not care about the vampires. Saeris continues to be increasingly OP and doesn't get much character develop that isn't ability-related in this book, but we do get to know Kingfisher better, which is surprisingly fun, especially as he and Carrion Swift, the real heavy lifter in the series, go on a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Adventure.
One thing I really like about this series, continued with this book, is the amount of on screen sex there is. It's hard to find romantasy that unabashedly delivers on spice, and, despite it not always being to my taste, I appreciate that it's both plot important (you, too, can gain new magical body art by orgasming) and all about pleasure. Saeris and Kingfisher are completely nasty, and I like how other characters are getting their own freak on; it was pretty hilarious to have our dubious heroes walk in on a full-on orgy. This is the kind of joyful debauchery that usually only happens in fan fiction and certain niche porn, and I appreciate it.
This book is the sophomore slump of the series, though. There's way too many new subplots, but if it's not to your taste, don't worry: Hart will be over it in another hundred pages or so. I personally liked the dreamwalking, which was all pretty much a set up for more sex, and I liked the way Kingfisher's mother is utilized in the narrative. I did miss the focus of the first book on blacksmithing and alchemy as it kept the first book grounded. My hopes for the last book in this series is that it's as fun as the rest of the series, we wrap up some of the central mysteries to the series that got delayed in this book, and more Carrion Swift.
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Enchantra by Kaylie Smith
I read the first book, Phantasma, a couple of years ago, so my memory of that story was rather thin, but luckily this book can pretty much be read as a standalone. A year-ish following the events of the first book, Genevieve Grimm goes to Rome to investigate who Barrington Silver is and his connection to her deceased mother. As with the first book, the manor, Enchantra, turns out to be another demonic abode, and she gets trapped into a murderous game for the last one standing alongside the seven adult children of the household. A plucky, vibrant woman, Genevieve makes for a protagonist who is easy to root for, even though she has the self-preservation instinct of a lemming.
I really liked the marriage of convenience between Genevieve and Rowin Silver and how gradual, despite the short time frame of the novel, their romance seemed. The deadly game they're trapped in was also more interesting than the more carnival-esque Phantasma, since all of the characters are family, including Genevieve after her and Rowin's emergency marriage. I feel like Smith improved upon the set up she put together in the first book and also gave themself more space to develop side characters, since there's significantly less of them to manage in this book. I'm not deeply invested in Rowin's character, but he has his moments as do his siblings.
The first half of the book drags with introducing the various members of the family and trying with varying success to set up tension in the demonic games with the wedding and a masquerade, but the rest of the book is entertaining with a great amount of variation in settings and continued character growth for important characters. As with the first book, the sex feels worthwhile, and I liked the use of sex as a tool to manipulate the in universe demonic audience. A few questions are left unanswered, which sets up for the next book, but nothing that leaves the reader feeling like the story of this book was unfinished.
Rating: ★★★½☆
Books I Did Not Finish
Dragonfall by L.R. Lam
This book started off strong, introducing Everen, the last male dragon, and Arcady, a thief who retrieves an artifact of the Plaguebringer, accidentally bonding them and Everen. I really liked the different narration styles for the various POVs in this book because they lend distinct voices to each character and also give insight into the relationship between characters. Unfortunately, that strong, well-paced beginning bottoms out quickly, and it became harder and hard to stay interested as Arcady and Everen meet an ever-growing cast of characters on their way to one heist to another. While this could be written off as worldbuilding, it's boring and, by halfway, a true slog.
The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
A combination witch and ghost story told through three perspectives in three different time periods: Minerva, a graduate student research the life and work of Beatrice Tremblay in 1998; Alba, Minerva's great-grandmother who encountered witches and monsters in her youth in 1908; and, Beatrice, who based her horror novel, The Vanishing, on the mysterious disappearance in 1934 of her roommate and love interest, Virginia. I really liked how all three POVs are structured differently, especially Beatrice's sections, which are written as the autobiographical manuscript that Minerva is studying. Alba and Minerva's POVs are a more traditional third-person limited in two different settings that build tension even as events mirror each other. I did find that both had points where they dragged in comparison to Beatrice's chapters, especially in the first quarter of the book, but everything picks up onwards from there.
I really enjoyed how this is a very character driven novel, but it had great settings and a solid feeling of different time periods, which is very helpful as Minerva and Beatrice's chapters have the same setting. As a character, I liked Alba the best because her POV really captures the feeling of a young woman on the cusp of adulthood and maturity, and she has spunk and drive with her heart pulled between family and her own desires. Some people will find her love triangle divisive, but it fits perfectly into the gothic genre. All three characters have distinct motivators that are sufficiently different from each other: Minerva is driven by the naturally obsessive nature of academic ambition; Beatrice is trapped in hopeless love and social expectations; and Alba is faced with danger from within her own family.
That being said, there's some points that are clearly "for the vibes" rather than additive to the plot. Minerva being nearly crushed in the library stacks and the whole character of Conrad felt unnecessary, and the mirroring of events sometimes came off as trite, like finding a dead rat to signal an escalation in the witch's hold on the victim. I also wasn't a fan of the climax having a convenient dues ex machina, although I did like the final, foreseeable villain reveal. Also, while this isn't a romance, it's pretty obvious that Hideo is interested in Minerva as more than a friend and colleague, but it's hard to see if it'll go anywhere despite how much he does for her, which feels kind of bad.
Rating: ★★★½☆
Upon a Starlit Tide by Kell Woods
This is a fun book that combines the fairy tales of A Little Mermaid and Cinderella and is set primarily in the walled city of Saint-Malo, Brittany. Lucinde, the third and adopted daughter of the powerful Léon shipping family, commonly called 'Luce', saves a man caught in the shallows after a shipwreck. The man turns out to be Morgan de Chatelaine, the youngest son of a similarly powerful shipping family, and his survival sets into motion events that upend Luce's idyllic life, forcing her to confront her feelings regarding Samuel, friend and English smuggler, and face her shrouded past. I found the combination of elements from both fairy tales to be refreshing and fun with the major tropes from each, from escaping the grand ball at midnight to Luce's misshapen and painful feet, interwoven throughout the story.
Of particular pleasure is how the story describes and utilises the unique environment of Saint-Malo. Much of the story's rising action takes place on ships and small boats and in the interconnected sea cave system, which lends an otherworldly and sometimes eerie feel the narrative. I really liked how the fae are present for most of the story, but they're also largely mysterious to humans as the two have grown more and more apart from each other as humans have grown in population and reshaped the land to their needs. The second half of the story, in which the fae do play a much larger part, is unfortunately messier in its pacing and has too many convenient reveals, which made me wonder if this book might have benefited from being a duology to fully flesh out the magical world.
Overall, the second half of the book feels chaotic in comparison to the grounded, atmospheric first half, and many of the characters, especially Morgan, become flatter to accommodate the fast-moving plot and Luce's rapid character growth. It's still enjoyable, particularly the dissection of Luce's relationship with her father, but much of the impact of the story is lost with the abrupt and unsatisfactory ending. I think this a classic example of having a lot of potential but trying to do too much all at once.
Rating: ★★★☆☆
The Possession of Alba Díaz by Isabel Cañas
I love a good ol' demonic possession! This book is a great romp through the demonic possession horror subgenre mixed with modern folklore elements to add to the 1765 Mexico setting. The story focuses on the possession of Alba, the adopted daughter of the wealthy Díaz family, after she tries to follow the wails of a baby in a silver mine. Along with Elías, the mysterious convict and alchemist, Bartholomé, the zealous priest and childhood friend, and Carlos, Alba's fiancé and cousin of Elías, Alba's possession upends their lives and challenges current power structures and ideals of identity and female agency. The narrative is well-paced and is successfully eerie, and the demonic possession is front and center with great tension built up to the finale.
I loved Alba's character. She starts off the story newly engaged to Carlos, not for love but for convenience; Alba wants to be able to live her own life and Carlos is willing to provide that for her. The plague drives Alba and Carlos's families to take refuge in a small silver mining community, which is also where Alba was found orphaned as an infant. Alba is resourceful, intelligent, and willing to face her own prejudices and demons, literal and emotional, to gain control over her life and her love for Elías, and this makes the action of the finale satisfying with its blend of revenge and retribution.
The one thing I found really didn't work was the penultimate section where Elías and Alba attempt to escape the Inquisition. This section is choppy and frenetic in a way the rest of the novel isn't; it is meant to set up the final major twist but manages to be more confusing than anything else. There is also an awkward POV shift at the end that felt unedited and abrupt, although I understand it was trying to tie back to the opening of the novel. While I liked the content of the ending, it was awkwardly executed.
Rating: ★★★★☆
8114 by Joshua Hill
This book captures B horror flick vibes with about the same amount of substance. Paul, a disgraced true crime podcaster, comes back to his hometown only to discover that Kyle, one of his best friends from his youth, has killed himself in John's childhood home, 8114. As any desperate man on the brink of career collapse would do, he immediately begins a new true crime podcast to investigate Kyle's supposed suicide. Taking place in a small, close knit town very similar to the author's own, Paul's life continues to unravel as he finds himself haunted by Kyle, various malevolent supernatural forces, and, ultimately, himself.
Characters aside from John are flat, serving one purpose: to demonstrate to Paul how he himself is part of the problem, whether it be how he preys on society's obsession with the criminal and macabre or how he fundamentally cannot take responsibility for his own actions. I really liked how the interviews Paul put his friends and community members up to play a major, on-screen part to the story, although the rest of the narrative suffers from abrupt transitions, occasionally boring and often unbelievable conversations, and, by the last fourth of the book, way too much going on. Still, I did read the whole book because it's short and I do enjoy a B horror flick in the way that most people enjoy a candy bar: in the moment, it's what you want, but it gives you a headache afterwards.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
The Once and Future Queen by Paula Lafferty
First book in a triology
This book started off with a lot of promise: a modern woman named Vera, living in Glastonbury and helping to run her family's inn, discovers that she's in fact Guinevere, sent to the future to recover from a terrible fate in Arthurian Britain. The set up is well-done, especially for readers familiar with time portal fantasy: Vera makes the choice to go back in time with Merlin to save the future, and there is sufficient mystery to how she'll adapt in the past and if she'll ever recover her memories as Guinevere. Unfortunately, that's where things immediately begin to fall apart—and not in a positive way for the narrative.
Remember BBC Merlin? The characters are structured similarly but, outside of Lancelot and Gawain, lacks their charm. Arthur begins the book as cold and standoffish, and his thawing is awkwardly done, and Vera and Arthur oscillate viciously between harmonious love and attraction and blow up fights that feel increasingly manufactured to add unnecessary tension. This is a trend with most other characters in the novel with every plot-important character going through a mini-arc of 'are they good or are they bad?' with Merlin as a particularly notable example. It's all effectively word count padding and gets to be exhausting.
Despite all of this, I do think this first book in a trilogy stuck the landing for the most part with the ending, spending more time with the mages and how magic works and finally revealing some of the mystery around Lancelot and Gawain. I'm more interested in the side characters and the mystery with Vivianne, this universe's Morgana, than with Vera and Arthur, which is certainly a detractor from picking up the next book unless it turns out there are alternating POVs as the bonus chapter seems to imply as a possibility.
Rating: ★½☆☆☆
Brimstone by Callie Hart
Second in the Fae & Alchemy trilogy
I feel like I cracked the code to the vast majority of romantasy: if you don't take it seriously, it's a lot of fun. Despite how much is going on in this book and seemingly very little editorial oversight, I enjoyed this, although not as much as Quicksilver, but that mostly has to do with how much I do not care about the vampires. Saeris continues to be increasingly OP and doesn't get much character develop that isn't ability-related in this book, but we do get to know Kingfisher better, which is surprisingly fun, especially as he and Carrion Swift, the real heavy lifter in the series, go on a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Adventure.
One thing I really like about this series, continued with this book, is the amount of on screen sex there is. It's hard to find romantasy that unabashedly delivers on spice, and, despite it not always being to my taste, I appreciate that it's both plot important (you, too, can gain new magical body art by orgasming) and all about pleasure. Saeris and Kingfisher are completely nasty, and I like how other characters are getting their own freak on; it was pretty hilarious to have our dubious heroes walk in on a full-on orgy. This is the kind of joyful debauchery that usually only happens in fan fiction and certain niche porn, and I appreciate it.
This book is the sophomore slump of the series, though. There's way too many new subplots, but if it's not to your taste, don't worry: Hart will be over it in another hundred pages or so. I personally liked the dreamwalking, which was all pretty much a set up for more sex, and I liked the way Kingfisher's mother is utilized in the narrative. I did miss the focus of the first book on blacksmithing and alchemy as it kept the first book grounded. My hopes for the last book in this series is that it's as fun as the rest of the series, we wrap up some of the central mysteries to the series that got delayed in this book, and more Carrion Swift.
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Enchantra by Kaylie Smith
Second book in the Wicked Games trilogy(?)
I read the first book, Phantasma, a couple of years ago, so my memory of that story was rather thin, but luckily this book can pretty much be read as a standalone. A year-ish following the events of the first book, Genevieve Grimm goes to Rome to investigate who Barrington Silver is and his connection to her deceased mother. As with the first book, the manor, Enchantra, turns out to be another demonic abode, and she gets trapped into a murderous game for the last one standing alongside the seven adult children of the household. A plucky, vibrant woman, Genevieve makes for a protagonist who is easy to root for, even though she has the self-preservation instinct of a lemming.
I really liked the marriage of convenience between Genevieve and Rowin Silver and how gradual, despite the short time frame of the novel, their romance seemed. The deadly game they're trapped in was also more interesting than the more carnival-esque Phantasma, since all of the characters are family, including Genevieve after her and Rowin's emergency marriage. I feel like Smith improved upon the set up she put together in the first book and also gave themself more space to develop side characters, since there's significantly less of them to manage in this book. I'm not deeply invested in Rowin's character, but he has his moments as do his siblings.
The first half of the book drags with introducing the various members of the family and trying with varying success to set up tension in the demonic games with the wedding and a masquerade, but the rest of the book is entertaining with a great amount of variation in settings and continued character growth for important characters. As with the first book, the sex feels worthwhile, and I liked the use of sex as a tool to manipulate the in universe demonic audience. A few questions are left unanswered, which sets up for the next book, but nothing that leaves the reader feeling like the story of this book was unfinished.
Rating: ★★★½☆
Books I Did Not Finish
Dragonfall by L.R. Lam
First book in a duology
This book started off strong, introducing Everen, the last male dragon, and Arcady, a thief who retrieves an artifact of the Plaguebringer, accidentally bonding them and Everen. I really liked the different narration styles for the various POVs in this book because they lend distinct voices to each character and also give insight into the relationship between characters. Unfortunately, that strong, well-paced beginning bottoms out quickly, and it became harder and hard to stay interested as Arcady and Everen meet an ever-growing cast of characters on their way to one heist to another. While this could be written off as worldbuilding, it's boring and, by halfway, a true slog.
