Publisher description taken from Macmillan

The Lighthouse at the Edge of the World is a powerful and poignant contemporary Queer fantasy perfect for fans of Hadestown and Under the Whispering Door

At the edge of Chicago, nestled on the shores of Lake Michigan, there is a waystation for the dead. Every night, the newly-departed travel through the city to the Station, guided by its lighthouse. There, they reckon with their lives, before stepping aboard a boat to go beyond.

Nera has spent decades watching her father—the ferryman of the dead—sail across the lake, each night just like the last.

But tonight, something is wrong.

The Station’s lighthouse has started to flicker out. The terrifying, ghostly Haunts have multiplied in the city. And now a person—a living person—has found her way onto the boat.

Her name is Charlie. She followed a song. And she is searching for someone she lost.

I still haven’t seen Hadestown, there was a massive snowstorm the day I had tickets for the show in Schenectady. But I love a good Orpheus retelling and I adore those specific types of urban fantasy books where the setting is its own character. And based on the early praise for The Lighthouse at the Edge of the World, it’s got a solid amount of both.

(Coming July 29, 2025)

Publisher description taken from Macmillan

A young witch teaches her mother how to do magic–with very unexpected results–in this relatable, resonant novel about family, identity, and the power of love.

Jamie is basically your average New England academic in-training–she has a strong queer relationship, an esoteric dissertation proposal, and inherited generational trauma. But she has one extraordinary secret: she’s also a powerful witch.

Serena, Jamie’s mother, has been hiding from the world in an old one-room schoolhouse for several years, grieving the death of her wife and the simultaneous explosion in her professional life. All she has left are memories.

Jamie’s busy digging into a three-hundred-year-old magical book, but she still finds time to teach Serena to cast spells and help her come out of her shell. But Jamie doesn’t know the whole story of what happened to her mom years ago, and those secrets are leading Serena down a destructive path.

Now it’s up to this grad student and literature nerd to understand the secrets behind this mysterious novel from 1749, unearth a long-buried scandal hinted therein, and learn the true nature of magic, before her mother ruins both of their lives.

I still have not read any Charlie Jane Anders, even though All the Birds in the Sky has been sitting on my bookshelf for approximately a decade now. But a queer, character-driven, densely literary and heartbreaking story set in New England? Yes, I will be getting on my library’s holds list as soon as it is available. 

So it’s is not queer urban fantasy, but the description Lessons in Magic and Disaster reminds me a bit of 2009’s The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, which I have fond memories of reading while riding Boston’s Orange Line in the summer of 2013. I was twenty-four, living just outside the city in an old apartment with my boyfriend and three others, and had just finished my first semester of grad school. Was it a good book? Years later, I’m still not sure. Was it all academia and atmosphere in New England?

Very much so, yes.

(Coming August 19, 2025)

Confession again: I didn’t finish A Darker Shade of Magic. I might go back at some point (maybe this summer) and try the audiobook again. It was a very nice listen last summer during a CRPS flare up that left me on the couch under the open window instead of going to a family outing. But I just never went back to it once I was able to walk again a couple days later. Still, all of Schwab’s books have such intriguing premises and Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is the same way.

(Description taken from Macmillan Publishing)

From V. E. Schwab, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue: a new genre-defying novel about immortality and hunger.

This is a story about hunger.

1532. Santo Domingo de la Calzada.

A young girl grows up wild and wily—her beauty is only outmatched by her dreams of escape. But María knows she can only ever be a prize, or a pawn, in the games played by men. When an alluring stranger offers an alternate path, María makes a desperate choice. She vows to have no regrets.

This is a story about love.

1827. London.

A young woman lives an idyllic but cloistered life on her family’s estate, until a moment of forbidden intimacy sees her shipped off to London. Charlotte’s tender heart and seemingly impossible wishes are swept away by an invitation from a beautiful widow—but the price of freedom is higher than she could have imagined.

This is a story about rage.

2019. Boston.

College was supposed to be her chance to be someone new. That’s why Alice moved halfway across the world, leaving her old life behind. But after an out-of-character one-night stand leaves her questioning her past, her present, and her future, Alice throws herself into the hunt for answers . . . and revenge.

This is a story about life—

how it ends, and how it starts.

(Coming June 10, 2025)

*Technically that’s still spring. I do not care. If it’s 80F/27C outside, it’s summer.