Bern Hendricks is a music professor and a massive fan of composer Fredrick Delany. Delany has all but fallen out of popularity, but his early music is very well respected, and Bern is one of the top experts in Delany’s music. Bern has now been given the call of a lifetime, to head the authenticating of Delany’s infamous lost opera! But, while working with the lost opera, Bern learns some untold truths about Delany’s work and another composer that had been forgotten to the ages. This book is such a wonderful and exciting read for anyone interested in all music, and it is a study in the erasure of black and female composers.
-Zach
Charlie is a straight-A student and a star athlete, but when he was 10 his mother was killed in a hit-and-run. Since then, he has had to carry the load of a deceased mother and a now alcoholic father. When Charlie is seventeen everything changes for him when he saves the life of his curmudgeon neighbor, and then learns of a portal to another world in his neighbor's shed! This is the first time I have ever read Stephen King, and as a fan of fantasy and fairytales I could not have been more pleased with this story!
-Zach
Neve is the youngest daughter of the King and with the help of her unlikely “partner in crime”, Ronan, she must take her rightful spot on the throne even though she yearns for freedom from the crown. Neve and Ronan making a living selling stolen spells, but when a power struggle occurs Neve knows what she must do, and so starts the action-packed adventure. This story is a wonderful retelling of Irish fairytales and legends, filled with magic, banshees, darkness, action, and a strong female lead! If you are a fan of discovering new folklore but are tired of hearing the same old tales, this is definitely for you!
-Zach
Something is lurking in the river, and 9-year-old Tiffany Aching is going to catch what’s lurking - by using her brother as bait. While Tiffany’s brother plays by the river, out pounces Jenny Greenteeth and before Jenny is able to swallow up Tiffany’s brother, she gets cracked upside the head with a frying pan. Little did Tiffany know that this action would set into motion a magical journey filled with an army of tiny blue men, different worlds, and an Evil Queen. This is the beginning of the Tiffany Aching series by Pratchett, one of many series within the massive Discworld. I think it is a wonderful introduction to Discworld for anyone interested in fantasy with a twist of the absurd.
-Zach
Rapunzel’s captor, the evil witch Gothel, is a character we all know about. But what if her story has deeper levels than just being an evil witch? This is Gothel’s story, and it goes far deeper than a tale about an evil witch that steals a baby. Haelewise is an outcast in her town and finds simple joy in hearing the stories of magic told by her mother. When her mother dies and Haelewise is left on her own with nothing to her name, she decides to follow the trail of magic left by her mother. This was a beautiful retelling of Rapunzel and the villain that made that story!
-Zach
Koral is a sixteen-year-old hunter living on a small farm with her brother, mother, father, and her ill younger sister. On the farm Koral and her brother capture and raise the monstrous and dangerous Maristags to train them for the Glory Races. With a major debt hanging over her family’s head and lack of funds to help care for her sister, Koral decides to enter herself into the Glory Race which is something Hunters are normally not allowed to do! This book is gripping, fun, and exciting from page one and would be perfect for anyone who enjoyed The Hunger Games!
-Zach
This is a brilliant re-telling of Edgar Allen Poe’s classic The Fall of the House of Usher. Alex Easton is a retired solider and is sent a letter saying that his childhood friend, Madeline Usher, is dying so he heads to their ancestral home. What Alex finds there is a mass of strange fungal growth, and rabbits that seem to be acting very strange. What affliction is killing Madeline? This was a wonderfully gripping story that I could not stop reading once I started!
-Zach
Loulie al-Nazari and her “bodyguard” are jinn relic hunters and sellers. Rumors of their abilities to find these relics are brought to The Sultan, who in turn blackmails Loulie into adventuring to find an ancient lamp that will rid the land of all jinn. This debut by Chelsea Abdullah is a page turning fantasy! Once I started this book I could not stop! This is the first novel of what will become a trilogy so if you are looking to start a new series this is a great one!
-Zach
$50,000 can really change someone’s life, and all you have to do to win it is play hide and seek! At least that’s what Mack and her competitors are made to believe. This book is filled to the brim with suspense, horror, and something dark! The pages of this novel are filled with suspense and twists! If you are a fan of Squid Game or Hunger Games, but also love some horror elements, this is a book for you!
-Zach
Maeve is a somewhat well adjusted woman working for a publishing company in New York City. The only problem is she was born and raised in a cult for the first 8 years of her life! Now an adult, her cousin who also grew up in the cult has reappeared in her life. The two catch up and decide they want to be in each other’s lives again, but is that the right call for Maeve? This horror novel by Anne Heltzel is a truly gripping tale from start to finish!
-Zach
Morpheus is the king of Dreams, but he has just been captured by an occult group and he is their prisoner for 70 years! Morpheus eventually escapes, takes his revenger on his captors, and then sets on repairing his now distressed kingdom. This is an early writing from Neil Gaiman, and it is the beginning of his incredible career in the world of fantasy!
-Zach
Jazz pianist Gus Kitko plans to spend the final moments of his life playing piano at a massive end of the world party. Just as the impact of the Vanguards (super strong evil mechs meant to destroy humanity) is about to take place and put an end to humanity, Gus is saved by one of the Vanguards and they become one. Gus and the Vanguard work together with a specialized group of trader Vanguards to save humanity! This first instalment of The Starmetal Symphony is a fun space opera full of action and romance.
-Zach
A lonely building inspector lives his life one day at a time, lost in a deep depression triggered by the loss of his maze-loving daughter and his now ex-wife. One night he receives a phone call from his daughter saying that she is still alive and that he needs to come find her at the end of the maze! This graphic novel by Jeff Lemire is truly heart wrenching, beautiful and a wonderful short series for any comic book fan!
-Zach
-Zach
This is a wonderful debut of the new “The Talents” series! Two young boys with strange powers are collected by two detectives that are tasked to escort them to safety in the north. Once moved to safety these boys meet other children with powers and end up on an exciting adventure full of magical realism, world building and Victorian England! If you enjoy stories such as Marvel’s: X-Men, or Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, this is definitely a novel for you!
-Zach
Tristran Thorn promises his unrequited love that he will go and find a falling star that they watch fall together, little does Tristran know that this falling star is not just a star but something far stranger…but this discovery doesn’t stop Tristran from bringing the star to his hopeful beloved. This is a truly wonderful fairytale for adults written in the incredible prose that Gaiman has become known for! I would recommend this book to anyone who has ever thought about reading Neil Gaiman because who doesn’t love a fairytale?
-Zach
A wonderful story hidden within discussions about mortality, life, and mental health. Wallace, a lawyer, a curmudgeon, and most recently a ghost, is on a journey into the afterlife. This afterlife begins for Wallace in a Tea shop. Which is run by a ferryman, a reaper, an elderly ghost as well as a ghost dog. Wallace is tasked with discovering his true self before moving on. Klune has found a perfect spot between serious and silly, as well as fantasy and reality in this best-selling novel.
-Zach
What would happen if you were to die during different massive events in your life? Would you be happy with the decisions you had made up to that point or would you wish you had done more? This graphic novel, written by Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon, explores this idea in a non-chronological anthology story about an obituary writer dealing with massive events throughout his life and at the end of each story he dies. If you are looking for a beautifully written, albeit somewhat experimental work this is for you!
-Zach
Shadow Moon has just been released from prison. Sadly, the same day of his release he discovers his wife has died and the first thing he has to do as a free man is attend her funeral. On his way to the funeral, he meets a strange, larger than life, man named Mr. Wednesday who immediately offers him a job. This story is a masterful tale of mythology, and fantasy while taking place in the modern day America. Gaiman uses his incredible voice and love for mythologies to create a tale of loss turned discovery!
-Zach
One warm spring day, the devil arrives in Moscow. That is the beginning of a wonderful Russian classic by one of Russia’s most underrated authors, Mikhail Bulgakov! This story features what one has come to expect from a Russian classic, but within a magical realism world, accompanied by a massive, talking cat that enjoys chess and vodka. If you have a taste for classics, but also love works of fantasy taking place in an unsuspecting real world this is very much a book for you!
-Zach
This novel is a cynical yet heartwarming story about an elderly ex-painter telling his fictional autobiography to a voluptuous young woman, when all he wants is it be left alone. Vonnegut’s only true love story, but a platonic love between two characters learning things about themselves while learning things about each other. If you have not read any Vonnegut this is a wonderful place to start!
-Zach
A young woman with no aspirations finds meaning in her life when a friend from her past reaches out to ask if she would become her children’s care giver. This seems like a fairly bland plot until you discover that the children have a rare defect that causes them to spontaneously combust whenever they become agitated in any way! This novel was the first novel I have ever sat and read in one day, and I absolutely loved it, I laughed out loud at times and cried at others!
-Zach
